


Mass Effect: Inevitable

by LaraJayd



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-07 17:22:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 96,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4271607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaraJayd/pseuds/LaraJayd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ME3 fixit fic, with added romance for Female Shepard. I liked some qualities of all the romance options throughout the ME series but never found one that fit quite right, so this is also an attempt to fix that (but not by creating a Garrus + Kaidan + James hybrid, rather by making a brand new OC). Add in a healthy dose of action and a bit of a plot shake-up and you have my fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first proper attempt at writing a fanfic in years, and my first ever foray into the Mass Effect universe. As such, constructive criticism would be very welcome.  
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. Bioware/EA owns all.

**Chapter One**

Lieutenant Nathan Briggs could not wipe the smile off his face. He supposed that had a lot to do with the fact that he had drunk a copious amount of alcohol.

Mostly it was due to the orders he had received this morning.

He gestured expansively at the bartender. “Another round!” His squad cheered and moved to grab their next drinks from the bar.

Nathan’s XO pushed through the pack of off-duty soldiers filling the bar, clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a good, friendly shake. “Hell of a thing, Lieutenant!” he shouted over the top of the throbbing dance music, grinning proudly.

Nathan nodded, smiling, but trying to tamp it down to keep some façade of humility at least, even if he didn’t really feel it. “Thanks, Sergeant!” he shouted back, grabbing the offered hand and gripping palm to palm before letting go.

Sergeant Harris took one of the drinks sitting on the bar and passed it to his CO. Nathan accepted the drink and leaned in closer to hear the man over the top of the pounding bass. “When do you ship out?” Harris asked.

Nathan took a long drink, savouring the burn at the back of his throat as the top-shelf whisky went down. He had blown at least a fortnight’s pay already tonight buying drinks for his men and women and wasn’t planning on stopping any time soon. They were going to have some _fun_ tonight. After all, he was about to head off to Interplanetary Combatives Training – N school – and he would never have been nominated if it weren’t for them. They had been his squad for two years now, two years of being thrown into the thick of the Terminus Systems and stomping on the throats of the pirates and slavers they found there. Two years of kicking ass and taking _names_.

His squad. _His fucking squad._ Legends, all of them. Shanti, the squad’s field medic, was flirting shamelessly with Brock, their sniper, who was happily reciprocating. Shanti could fix a gut wound with nothing but a tube of medi-gel and a band-aid, and Brock made a point of always shooting Batarians in their top-right eye just because he was that good. He made a game of it, and Dangerfield, their second sniper, who was surreptitiously watching a game of poker with interest as she nursed her drink, always tried to outdo him but could never quite manage to hit with the same accuracy. Not unless she threw a stasis at her target first then got them as it wore off, anyway, but they both considered that to be cheating. Shaw and Forrest, gunnery sergeants, were already eying the talent in the room, Forrest checking out every female’s rear while Shaw sought out the quarians in their skin-tight suits exclusively. Corporals Ngandu, Jarvis and Sporritt were edging their way closer to the dance floor as they downed their drinks, hips and shoulders already twitching to the beat.

Sergeant Harris hadn’t been with the squad for quite as long as the others but was already fitting in easily. The guy seemed to make friends as easily as he breathed, and he was no rookie on the battlefield either.

“I leave next week,” he replied. “Hitching a ride on a medical frigate heading back to Earth for shore leave. They’ll drop me at the port in Vancouver and I’ll head out to Rio from there.”

The two of them elbowed their way through the crowd and made their way to an empty standing table. “You ever been to Earth before, LT?” Harris asked.

Nathan nodded. “Yeah, grew up in Vancouver. You?”

“Nah, not me. I’m a spacer brat. Grew up on a bunch of different merchant ships. Always wanted to see Earth, though.”

Nathan nodded, taking a drink to hide the roll of his eyes. Earth. He could take or leave the place, to be honest, but he knew his opinion would not be popular with Harris. Or anyone else, really. He had been wanting to hightail it off the planet since he was twelve years old.

Of course, that wasn’t the planet’s fault. It was a nice planet, really. Good weather, in most places. It had some great things going for it. Like beaches, those were good. Sunshine, waves and beautiful half-naked women. All things he could appreciate.

But it was also the home of his father. That was enough to make him want to put it behind him forever. He wasn’t looking forward to being back there for N school – his father was sure to try and contact him – but in this case the reward would be worth the risk.

One of the other soldiers abruptly grabbed Harris by the arm and pulled him away, laughing and waving apologetically. Another two – Privates Bailiss and Petra – came over to fill the empty side of the table. A smile spread across his face again as he chatted with his fellow soldiers. _N school_. He had worked for this his whole life, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to mess it up. His squad was counting on him to make them proud. He couldn’t let them down. He could practically smell the pressed gunmetal of that distinctive red and white N7 badge in his future.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a tall, lithe asari on the edge of the dance floor. She seemed to be covertly studying him, looking him up and down. As he watched her she smiled and winked, ever so slightly, and he smiled back. She spun, and her hips moved, and he suddenly knew what he would be doing for the rest of the night. It was a celebration, after all, and he was here to have fun.

He finished off his drink in a long swig, and with Bailiss and Petra’s not so subtle encouragement, headed over to join her on the dance floor.

 

* * *

 

As he woke up the next morning, the first semi-coherent thought to pass through his head was something resembling o _uch._

He sat up gingerly and pressed a hand to his temple, grimacing. On the other side of the hotel bed the sheets were crumpled but empty. The asari’s bag was also missing from beside the nightstand, where she had thrown it last night. Thrown very hastily. He grinned to himself despite the headache. She had been a very… enthusiastic… partner. They had stumbled into the hotel room and gotten right down to business.

Dragging himself out of bed, he popped a couple of painkillers from his duffel bag then hit the shade modulator on the window, allowing bright simulated morning sun to spread across the bedroom floor. It wasn’t quite the same as a planetary sunrise, as the light was spread evenly throughout the open areas of the Citadel rather than rising from one particular point, but it did the job.

Nathan stumbled into the shower and set the hot water running, mind already valiantly trying to sift through all the things he would need to do today to be ready to ship out next week. He would have to hand the squad over to a new commander, of course, and to that end he had already completed his personnel reports and recommended XO Harris to replace him. Even in the short time he had known the Sergeant he had gained a healthy respect for the man’s abilities. He would make a good leader and Nathan would be comfortable knowing he had left his squad in good hands. He needed to drop those reports off to his sector chief in person, so he could answer the inevitable questions that would follow them up, and wanted to be fresh for that since it would no doubt be a giant pain in the ass, and he would probably be there for a while. He decided to go there first and get it over with, after stopping by the Alliance barracks to change into his uniform.

Half an hour later, in the small room he shared with another Lieutenant at the barracks, he was shrugging on his navy blue regulation jacket over a standard t-shirt. As he clipped the pins denoting his rank to his collar he took one last look at his reflection in the mirror. Short nut brown hair, slightly tousled, brown eyes only a little bloodshot. Clean shaven… well, close enough. He grabbed a brush and ran it through his hair, probably doing more harm than good, then grabbed his omnitool wrist band off the counter and snapped it on. The synth mesh adhered to his skin, then popped up with a small symbol denoting readiness and another symbol showing that he had unread messages. He set it to audio as he gathered up his personal data pad and cred chip and stuffed them in his pockets, ready to head out.

_“New message received from Second Lieutenant Jin, on behalf of Admiral David Anderson’s office, 0727 local time. Attention: First Lieutenant Nathan Briggs. Report to SSV Nimbus at 1300 hours Wednesday the 23 rd of June for transport to Vancouver, Earth, for your next assignment—“_

“Stop.” Nathan interrupted, frowning. He held up the omnitool and with a few quick finger movements brought up the mail interface manually. He read over the message again.

_Vancouver? Today? They’ve pushed up my transport date?_

No, that couldn’t be right. The ICT program didn’t start until the following week, and if the Alliance shipped him over there now he would just be sitting around doing nothing until then. Was the _Nimbus_ the only ship going to Earth between then and now?

He grunted to himself. Of course not. Earth was a major hub world for galactic trade, not to mention the homeworld of one of the races represented on the Council. There was never any shortage of vessels going from the Citadel to Earth.

Extra leave before ICT began, then? It was possible… but unlikely. Adding it to the leave he had already received on the Citadel, it would be an unusually large amount of time off.

Was there a special task he needed to perform on this particular ship on the way to Earth? No… as skilled as he was, those skills were hardly unique. He had a good grasp of military tactics and could shoot things pretty well; that was about it. He supposed he also meddled with tech a little, but he wouldn’t really consider himself an expert.

He needed more information about this change of plans. There was a file attached to the message, entitled ‘Mission Parameters’. He sat down on his bunk and opened it.

‘ _Alliance Military Police – Protection Division._

_Located on all major Alliance military command posts, the MP Protection Division is responsible for the safety and security of all military personnel on- and off-base…’_

He stopped reading. Well, now he was officially thrown for a loop. _Protection Division?_ Why was—How could he be assigned to the Protection Division only a few days before he was supposed to report to the villa for N training?

With a sinking feeling, he realised he knew the answer to that. N school had to be off. He must have been reassigned.

But why? He racked his brain for something he might have done wrong. He had drunk a significant amount of alcohol last night, but he could still remember the whole night and he was sure he hadn’t hit anyone or broken anything. He hadn’t broken any regs by going out and drinking – they were all on shore leave, it was practically expected behaviour. Could the asari have filed a false report against him? Claiming he hurt her, or… took advantage of her? No. That couldn’t possibly be true; if it was, he would have been carted off to a prison cell by the MPs, not transferred into their ranks.

Whatever he had done, it had to have been before last night. The problem was, his record was exemplary. Perfect. Practically covered in gold stars. Normally he wouldn’t consider that a problem – in fact, he considered it a point of resounding pride – but it didn’t help him work out what was going on here.

With a flash of determination, he decided that he wasn’t going to let this go like a good little soldier. He also wasn’t going to get anywhere just sitting on his bunk. He brought up his omnitool again and tapped a few commands into it. There – he was lucky, Admiral Anderson was currently located on the Citadel. His schedule was private, of course, but Nathan knew where his office was.

He would go and ask the Admiral to explain. In person.

 

* * *

  


Standing in the foyer of the Admiral’s office, he was already starting to think this was a bad idea. A bad, bad idea. Who in their right mind came storming into an Admiral’s office – an _Admiral’s_ office – and demanded to speak with them? Especially when that someone held the comparatively lowly rank of Lieutenant? This was insane.

Perhaps he was still drunk. Somehow, after last night, the alcohol had just never left his system. He had to be totally, blind drunk.

He almost turned around and left. But… he had to know. Drunk or not. He had earned that spot on the N training course and he wasn’t about to give it up easily.

Gathering what little of his courage remained, he presented himself at the Admiral’s assistant’s desk. From his Asian colouring, he guessed this was probably the Second Lieutenant Jin who had forwarded him his new orders. Jin stood at the sight of the Lieutenant’s rank pins and saluted. “Sir.”

Nathan returned the salute. “Second Lieutenant Jin?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d like to see the Admiral.” Nathan kept his tone pleasant, but couldn’t prevent some of the tension he felt from leaking into his voice.

Jin didn’t appear to notice as he took his seat and brought up his terminal’s interface. “Of course, sir, let me just locate the next available appointment.”

Nathan shook his head. “No, I would really like to see him now,” he replied personably, tone light and almost deferential. “If it’s at all possible. My business is very urgent.”

He received a tired glance in return. _You and everyone else,_ Jin’s expression clearly said. So much for his best efforts at diplomacy. “I’m sorry, sir, but the Admiral is not available at such short notice. I can try—“

With a swish of electronics, the door to the Admiral’s office abruptly slid open and the Admiral himself emerged. Without letting himself stop to think, Nathan took his chance. He side-stepped over into the Admiral’s path and snapped a perfect, parade-ground salute, back rigid, eyes forward. “Sir!”

Anderson pulled up short, and Nathan suppressed a cringe at the look on his face – a combination of surprise and… was that recognition?

Yep, this was a bad idea. He must still be drunk. But he was here now, and there was nothing for it but to follow through. He held his stiff posture and waited for the Admiral to respond, hoping he wouldn’t just keep walking.

With a resigned sigh, Anderson stopped. He returned the salute. “At ease, soldier. Lieutenant Briggs, I presume?”

Nathan’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. _He_ did _recognise me… he knows who I am?_ “Yes sir. May I have a moment of your time sir?”

“I thought you might turn up here. Come on, Briggs.” He spun and headed back towards his office.

Nathan wasn’t sure he had heard correctly, but the body language was clear. He had caught a break. He wasn’t about to look this surprising gift horse in the mouth. He hurried after the Admiral.

Once they were both inside his office, Admiral Anderson slapped the door panel and it slid shut behind them. “I think I can guess why you’re here, Lieutenant,” he said conversationally as he made his way over to his desk. Instead of taking a seat behind it, he leant against the front and folded his arms.

The Admiral certainly didn’t appear to be as angry as he should be at the sudden intrusion of an uninvited subordinate. “Sir?” he asked, not quite sure if he was supposed to respond or not.

“You received your new orders, and want to know why you’re being pulled out of N school. Is that about right?”

He bristled a bit at the Admiral’s seeming lack of appreciation of the gravity of the situation, but forced it down.

This was very strange. Although the Admiral would no doubt have approved the orders, surely he would only have dealt with such a low level assignment in the most abstract sense. Even if the soldier involved had just been approved for N training. There was no reason for him to get involved personally, and yet… he seemed to be quite familiar with the situation.

Nathan took a moment to respond, realising he was on uncertain ground. He chose his words carefully. “Yes, sir, that’s why I’m here. I’m not questioning your orders, sir, but I was hoping I could request… an explanation. I’m… not sure I understand your reasoning, sir,” he finished.

Instead of responding directly, Anderson studied him with a calculating stare. Nathan felt distinctly as though he was being evaluated. He regretted how quickly he had run that brush through his hair, now, but let his chin rise just slightly under the heavy gaze. “You’ve had quite the career so far, Lieutenant Briggs. I’ve been following your progress after the incident on Medena. Your ratio has been nothing short of remarkable.”

_Medena._ Now there was a good memory. Ignoring the slight swell of pride he felt, he withheld comment. “Ratio, sir?” Nathan hadn’t heard the term before.

“Shorthand, son. It refers to the number of successful missions you’ve completed, compared to the… losses you’ve suffered. Your ratio is excellent. Thirty seven missions since you were given command of your current team, with zero losses. Impressive.”

Nathan stood a little straighter. “Thank you, sir.”

“Not many squad leaders can boast the same thing, Lieutenant. You should be proud. Your ratio is one of the reasons I chose you for this assignment. It will be… rather unique, and I need someone with a good record, with some solid experience under his belt. I don’t blame you for feeling overqualified, and I _am_ sorry I needed to cancel your IC training. I know how much of a big deal that is. Hell, I’ve done it myself, I’m well aware. But,” Anderson took a breath. “This is more important.”

Nathan stayed silent, intrigued, despite himself.

Without further explanation, the Admiral used his omnitool to bring a vidscreen on the wall of his office to life. He queued up a clip and set it to play.

Nathan recognised it instantly. After all, it had played almost nonstop on all news channels for at least a week after it happened.

An image appeared on the screen, distant but suspiciously clear for one supposedly obtained from a member of the public’s omnitool. He wouldn’t be surprised at all if it turned out the “concerned member of the public” was an Alliance public relations officer. It showed a frigate at dock, a long, sleek, curving hull with the word ‘ _Normandy’_ painted on its flank. Nathan recognised the familiar shape of the building as the Vancouver Central Spaceport, the military wing. A light snow was falling, dusting the _Normandy_ with a heavy cloak of white.

_“…breaking news. Our sources advise that an arrest has been made in relation to the sudden and tragic destruction of the Bahak system’s mass relay and the associated devastating loss of life,”_ the voiceover faded in. _“Commander Shepard, Saviour of the Citadel, Hero of the Alliance and recipient of the Star of Terra, has claimed responsibility and turned herself in to Alliance authorities.”_

A hatch slid open in the side of the _Normandy_ and three distant figures, viewed from above, exited. Two clearly flanked the other, gripping the arms of the person in the middle. Although it was impossible to see from the distance at which the recording had been taken, the person in the middle had to be Commander Shepard. A hooded regulation weather jacket covered her and her hands appeared to be clasped – or cuffed – before her. As the recording progressed, the three of them descended from the _Normandy_ and headed down the ramp into the building.

They disappeared, and the image changed to a view of the ANN news anchor. She appeared a little uncertain as she looked up from her own vidscreen toward the camera, cocking her head to one side for a moment as she listened to her earpiece. “ _Uh… and we now have further confirmation that these reports are correct,”_ she announced, sounding more than a little confused. Nathan couldn’t blame her. _“Commander Shepard will be stripped of her rank and command and held in custody, awaiting trial for her involvement in what happened in Bahak—“_

The recording paused with the anchor staring at the camera, mouth opened slightly, mid-speech, eyes wide in surprise.

Nathan kept his mouth firmly shut, carefully refraining from glaring at the screen. Commander Shepard. Now it was starting to make sense. Of course they needed someone with a bit more field experience than the average MP to act as guard to one of the most capable soldiers in the galaxy. And of course, someone with a bit higher rank than average, to match her status – even though said status had been just a _little_ tarnished after she had freely admitted to being a mass murderer. It made perfect sense, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Perhaps he was being selfish, or petty, but he was supposed to be heading off to _N school_. How did guard duty, even if it was for the most famous soldier in the galaxy, compare to that? Something he had worked his whole life for? Something he had, quite literally, spent his whole life training for. Once he had graduated from N school he would start to be assigned the more important, more critical missions; missions that sent him to the furthest reaches of the known universe, the most dangerous theatres of battle. He would be responsible for saving lives, protecting Alliance interests, at the most critical points.

How could… _guard duty…_ possibly compare to that?

Thankfully, Anderson appeared to be oblivious to his barely concealed anger. “The Alliance must… display a front to the rest of the universe. We must appear to be holding the Commander to account for her actions,” he began to explain.

Nathan’s eyes narrowed, and this time he couldn’t suppress his anger. “ _Appear_ to be?” he repeated, voice rising. “She murdered three hundred thousand Batarians! Civilians! She destroyed a mass relay! We should be locking her up and throwing away the key!”

The Admiral’s eyebrows rose at this display. “And before that, she _saved_ millions of lives, Lieutenant!” he shot back.

Nathan chuckled mirthlessly. “So it all works out in terms of her ratio then, does it? What’s three hundred thousand compared to millions?”

Abruptly the Admiral seemed to deflate. He slapped a key on his omnitool and the vidscreen faded to black, then turned and moved over to his chair. He didn’t sit, but took ahold of the back as if for support.

As Nathan watched, still seething, the Admiral seemed to be considering something. His head was bowed, and he opened his mouth as if to start speaking, then stopped. Finally he straightened, and his jaw was set. “It was… necessary.”

“ _Necessary_ —“ Nathan began, but stopped abruptly as the Admiral held up his hand.

“That’s enough, Lieutenant. The Alliance’s actions regarding Commander Shepard are above your pay grade,” he snapped.

Nathan snapped to attention, knowing an order when he heard one. “Sir, yes, sir!”

“You will report to the SSV _Nimbus_ at 1300 hours today. You will perform this assignment to the best of your ability, and you will show Commander Shepard the respect she deserves.” The Admiral studied him carefully, then appeared to soften, just slightly, as if in understanding. “If you do a good job, son, you’ll receive a recommendation from me to take with you to the villa. Understood?”

“Yes sir.” He saluted. He knew a dismissal when he heard it too.

The Admiral returned the salute. Nathan spun on his heel and headed for the office door. As he left, he could have sworn the Admiral whispered something he was not intended to hear. It sounded suspiciously like, “ _Good luck.”_


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

“…and the mess is down that corridor to the right,” explained the young private.

Later this morning Nathan would be relieving the private of the responsibility for guarding Commander Shepard.

When he had arrived the previous day he had been swiftly allocated his own quarters off base by a polite but detached housing officer, then told to report for duty at 0700 the following morning. Ever the good soldier, and despite the fact that he very much did not want to be reporting for this particular duty, Nathan had arrived precisely on time. He had been introduced to Private Roberts, who had been Shepard’s day guard for all of three weeks. The Private practically reeked of enthusiasm and naivete, and while that combination could have been beyond irritating, Nathan had so far found it to be annoyingly endearing. If Roberts was disappointed at being relieved of duty, he didn’t let on. He simply greeted his replacement warmly, and offered to take him on a tour of the Alliance compound. All in all, he was making it very difficult for Nathan to maintain his bad mood.

Roberts lead him down a flight of stairs and around a corner, then stopped before a door labelled ‘Detention Centre’. The indicator on the door was a solid red. “Your omnitool should be keyed to let you through here, sir, but it might be worth testing it just in case,” Roberts suggested, gesturing to the panel.

Nathan passed his left wrist over the sensor, and was rewarded with a cheerful beep. The door slid open. “Looks good,” he commented.

“Mine didn’t work for three days,” Roberts muttered, shooting a long-suffering glance at Nathan. “Follow me, sir, and I’ll introduce you to the Commander.”

He headed off down the corridor, and Nathan followed a couple of steps behind. He felt a slight touch of nerves, but that just annoyed him. He set his jaw and carefully schooled his face into a mask of professionalism. He didn’t like this. Not at all. Commander Shepard was probably one of the last people in the galaxy he wanted to meet, let alone spend full days in the company of. But he had his orders and he would follow them despite his personal feelings on the matter.

“She’s not allowed to have any visitors, unless they have proper authorisation,” Roberts explained as they walked. “No extranet access either, and only limited intranet access. So… she usually likes to chat.” He stopped outside a closed door at the end of the corridor, another red indicator light. This one was marked ‘01’. Roberts noticed him looking at the markings and grinned. Nathan detected a hint of pride in his expression. “She gets the best one, sir. Of course. Wait til you see it. Here, try your omnitool again.”

The Private sounded almost like he was trying to sell him an apartment. Nathan waved his wrist before the sensor and the door swished open.

The room was _huge_. The area nearest the door held a small two-seater lounge and a vidscreen, as well as a couple of bookcases filled with datapads and old paper books. Past that was a small round table and a couple of chairs, and on the other side of the room stood a treadmill. At the far end of the room, off to one side, was a large bed draped in clean white sheets. A bathroom alcove stood nearby. And beyond that, the entire far wall was one big window.

With an effort, Nathan maintained his mask of professionalism. He had seen officer quarters that weren’t as nice as this. This was supposed to be the brig?

As they entered, the woman who had to be Commander Shepard looked up from her seat on the couch. She set the datapad she had been holding down beside her and stood.

Nathan blinked. He had seen images of her everywhere, on the news, in recruitment ads, in the tabloids, but they always pictured her in full N7 armour or decked out in Alliance dress uniform receiving some medal or other. In person she was so… small. Of course, from his lofty six foot two height, most humans were shorter than he was. But he was not expecting the Great Commander Shepard to be just slightly shorter than the average human woman – a good head shorter than him.

And she was so… soft-looking. She was supposed to have a masterful commanding presence, a steely resolve, and the ability to inspire her team to complete tasks that would be considered impossible by anyone else. But this Shepard, standing at relaxed parade rest and dressed comfortably in a light blue regulation t-shirt and fatigues, displayed no hint of any of that.

The lines of her face were gentle and full, cheekbones high but not prominent, mouth and jaw just a little wider than was currently considered attractive. There was a dusting of light freckles across her nose and cheeks. She looked to be in very good shape, but her shoulders and arms, though lean, did not appear to be heavily muscled. Her hair was a thick, wavy combination of vibrant browns with the occasional dark red or golden highlight, and it was pulled back into a very loose tail that hung lazily over one shoulder, just touching the top of her breastbone. Her eyes, a brilliant blue a shade lighter than her uniform, appeared tired. She even had dark circles.

She was beautiful, despite the dark circles… but not quite the Great Commander Shepard he was expecting. She looked… painfully human.

He had to admit, he was a little disappointed.

Roberts snapped to attention and saluted smartly. “Commander Shepard.”

She smiled, a wry smile, one corner of her mouth turning up slightly. “Roberts, you know you’re not supposed to call me that anymore,” she chastised. “And you’re definitely not supposed to salute me.” Her voice was strong, calm, with vaguely melodic undertones.

Roberts dropped his hand, looking a little sheepish. “I know, Comm—er, Shep… Shepard. Ma’am. I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she reassured him, shifting her attention to Nathan. She looked him over, head to toe, and he almost fidgeted. Soft though her features might be, her gaze was sharp.

Roberts jumped in. “Ma’am, this is Lieutenant Nathan Briggs. He’s relieving me.”

“Lieutenant Briggs, good to meet you,” she said, extending a hand. He took it and shook. Her hands were small, but she had a firm grip.

“You too, ma’am,” he replied.

“You sure lucked out with this detail, Lieutenant,” she commented drily.

He met her eyes sharply. Did she know about the circumstances surrounding his being transferred here, or was she just making small talk? “I don’t see it that way, ma’am,” he lied smoothly.

Her eyes lingered on his for a moment, then returned to Roberts. “So, where are they shipping you off to next, Roberts?” she asked.

The young private appeared _thrilled_ that she cared, if his posture and grin were anything to go by. Nathan barely resisted rolling his eyes. “I’ve been assigned to the SSV _Juror_ , ma’am. I ship out tomorrow.”

She nodded. “The _Juror_ … that’s a good ship. Captain al Mabadhi has a good head on her shoulders. You’ll do fine.”

Roberts beamed. “Thank you, Comm—ma’am!”

She took his hand in hers and shook. “It’s been a pleasure, Roberts. I’d like to have a quick chat with Lieutenant Briggs here, if you don’t mind.”

“No ma’am!” he replied. “Lieutenant.” He practically bounced from the room, completely forgetting that even though Shepard technically had no rank as a prisoner, Nathan certainly did, and he had broken protocol by leaving without waiting for a dismissal. Nathan let it go. The kid was clearly starstruck.

 

* * *

 

Shepard watched the private leave, feeling a pang of regret. She was going to miss that kid. He was young and naïve and more than a little taken in by the whole ‘hero’ thing the Alliance had built up around her, but his enthusiasm made up for that. She had enjoyed their regular morning chats.

She turned her attention back to the tall, rigidly silent Lieutenant standing in front of her. She doubted those would continue with him. Not if the bald-faced lie he had given her when she remarked on his getting stuck with this duty was anything to go by.

She wondered what had made him so angry. It was barely concealed beneath a façade of outgoing professionalism and control; he obviously thought he was doing a good job of hiding it. But as soon as he had entered the room, she could feel the waves of hostility emanating from his general direction. Outwardly he appeared calm but his eyes gave it away, brown irises flashing, lids just slightly narrowed. His face was carefully neutral, but there was a touch of tension in his jaw, a thinning of his lips, chin raised a little higher than it otherwise should have been.

_Was_ she _the reason for his anger, rather than just the assignment?_ The idea was an interesting one, and it gave her pause. She had been treated with various degrees of respect since she had arrived in Vancouver, but rarely outward hostility… no matter how much she privately thought she deserved it after what had happened on Aratoht. She was well aware of the spin the Alliance would need to put on that. They would have to blame her completely, of course, show that she was being punished and would be put on trial for her crimes, because they absolutely could not afford a war with the Batarians. So a hostile reaction was certainly not out of the question, if all this Briggs knew was the public version of events.

Still, it would make things very unpleasant if he was going to continue with this hostility the whole time he was assigned to her.

“Have a seat, Lieutenant,” she offered, indicating one of the chairs at her small table.

“I’m fine, ma’am,” he replied, eyes straight ahead.

She shrugged, and took one of the seats for herself, crossing her legs and resting her hands comfortably in her lap. “Where are you from?” she asked.

“Here, ma’am. Vancouver.”

She nodded. “It’s beautiful here. So much greenery. I would have liked to grow up somewhere similar myself. It must have been nice.”

The muscles of his jaw worked beneath his skin. “Yes ma’am, it was.” His reply was short, almost curt.

Had she hit a nerve there? It seemed so. It was useful to know, but her goal wasn’t to push his buttons, so she let it go. “I was a Navy brat, myself. My home was on whatever ship or station my mother and father were assigned to at the time. I used to drive the crew nuts, running up and down the corridors, getting in the way. It was fun, but sometimes I wished I had a park to play in or a tree to climb.”

He glanced at her, eyes softening just for a moment. “Your parents never took you to Earth for shore leave?” he asked.

“I didn’t see Earth until I was fourteen, and I was a bit beyond parks and trees by then.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“I didn’t know any different, Briggs, so it didn’t bother me. One of the stations I was on for a while had some very entertaining catwalks in the maintenance section. I made do.” She smiled, and just for a moment, she thought he would too. But then, as if remembering where he was ( _or_ _who he was talking to?_ ), a dark shadow crossed his face once more.

“That’s good, ma’am.”

_Tough nut to crack._

She allowed her smile to fade. She had plenty of time to work out what his problem was, she didn’t need to push it. It was time to give him an out. She stood, and walked over to stand before him again. “Well, it was very nice to meet you, Lieutenant. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of one another.”

He took the out. “Yes ma’am.” Nodding sharply, he spun on his heel and left the room. The door swished shut behind him and the locking mechanism engaged with a click.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Katherinosaurus for your beta work in this chapter.

**Chapter Three**

Shepard woke early. She drifted awake slowly, lying flat on her bed, and watched as the darkened room came into focus. She stared up at the same stark white ceiling she had seen every morning for the past month, trying to ignore the headache starting to needle her brain, just behind her forehead. She pressed the cool back of her hand to the trouble spot and was rewarded when the pain lessened slightly.

She had been here one month. One month, and still no action from Alliance Command or the Council on the Reapers. She had provided them with images, data and even the vid feed from her suit cam showing the battle against the human Reaper in the Collector base, and still she heard nothing. They had barely even spoken to her about it. Admiral Hackett had forced them to at least appear to accept the evidence for later review, but so far that review hadn’t materialised. She doubted they had looked at it at all. But the worst thing was that if the situation wasn’t so desperately dire she couldn’t blame them for that.

From both bodies’ points of view – and she struggled _hard_ to see it that way, since she had been right in the middle of it all – after she had stopped Saren and Sovereign from destroying the Citadel, she had died tragically on a routine geth clean-up run. They had proof of her death, irrevocable proof. A full state memorial had been held. Her ‘heroic deeds’ had been written into the history books, and they gained a martyr.

Then, two years later, just when they would have thought everything was getting back to normal, rumours had started to emerge. Rumours that she was somehow back from the dead, and waging her own private war against the Collectors with the backing of Cerberus. _Cerberus_ , of all things. The Systems Alliance’s greatest hero working for a humanist terrorist group. The political repercussions of that must have been a nightmare to deal with.

After destroying the Collector base, she hadn’t thrown herself skipping and cheering back into the arms of the Alliance or the Council, either. At the time she had wanted to be cautious. She wanted to try and balance the need to push them to accept the fact that they needed to prepare for the inevitable and imminent return of the Reapers with the fact that as far as they were concerned, she was all but a traitor and possibly not even the real Commander Shepard.

To head _that_ idea off, she had allowed them to run endless tests, checking DNA, mental patterns, everything the best doctors in the Alliance could think of. Eventually they had seemed to accept that she was in fact the real thing, and had started sending missions her way again. She had tackled them diligently, making a show of representing the Alliance or the Council, whoever’s assignment it was, in an effort to build back their trust. It had even started working. Those horrible recruitment ads had started popping up again.

And then, one month – thirty two days – ago, she had been sent on a simple in-and-out rescue mission by Admiral Hackett and had instead hurled an asteroid into a mass relay. Killing three hundred thousand innocent colonists.

Her stomach still clenched at the memory. She had tried to warn them, but it had been too late.

Her head throbbed. Rolling over, she sat up and took a sip of water from the glass at her bedside. It was a very sturdy glass, having been moulded from a tough variant on plastic, and like everything else in her room, it was impossible to break or use as a weapon. Another little reminder that she was being treated very, very well, but she was still confined to the brig.

And again, if the situation wasn’t already beyond drastic, she would be perfectly happy with that. If she didn’t know the Reapers were going to come creeping out of the dark reaches of space any day now, she would gladly spend the rest of her life behind bars. _Actual_ bars, not this spacious, airy excuse for a prison cell. After all, she had murdered three hundred thousand batarians.

_Three hundred thousand people_.

That headache was really starting to pound, but she had no access to painkillers in here. She headed for the small bathroom alcove, shed her clothing and stepped into a warm shower, hoping the relaxing flow of water would reduce it somewhat. If it didn’t, she would have to ask Lieutenant Briggs to get her some medication.

She snorted as the warm water ran over her shoulders. That would be interesting. From the looks he threw at her when he brought her meals every day, she wouldn’t be surprised if he just flat-out refused.

Technically he would be within his rights to do so, too, which infuriated her. The lack of control over her own life while stuck in this room was… _maddening_. Of course, she could request to see a doctor – he would not be permitted to refuse that – but she still wanted to get to the bottom of his hostility toward her and that would be circumventing him, which would only annoy him more. After all, if she couldn’t spend her time convincing the governments of the galaxy of the Reaper threat, she had to occupy herself somehow.

She slapped the sensor and the water cut off. Wrapping one towel around herself and one around her hair, she caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. Grimacing, she laid gentle fingers on the bags under her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping well ever since the suicide mission to the Collector base. Even though by some completely bewildering miracle she had managed to pull her entire crew out of that alive, the images of melting people and giant human reapers haunted her dreams. The events at the Bahak system had just made it worse, and now that she couldn’t sleep with the comforting presence of her pistol beneath her pillow, every tiny noise seemed to wake her up. At best she was getting maybe three to four hours of sleep each night. She couldn’t keep going like this, and yet she couldn’t see a different way forward.

_If Command would just see what was right in front of their goddamn noses…_

She had to stop going over it and over it again and again or it would drive her crazy. She needed a distraction. The shower had muted the headache somewhat; enough for her to exercise at least.

She dressed quickly in shorts and one of her black N7 t-shirts, then gave her hair a quick dry with the towel and pulled it up into a messy but secure bun at the back of her head. She hopped on the treadmill and started running.

 

* * *

 

Nathan was beginning to adjust to the everyday routine of the detention centre. In the main prison area, which was set in a different wing to the wing where Shepard was being held, the day began at 0700 sharp every morning. Lights were switched on, cells opened and meals were served in the mess halls.

The prisoners were all minimum security, and all below the rank of Lieutenant. The maximum security prisoners were kept at a different, off-site facility, and the more senior officers in a separate, much smaller wing. There was only one senior officer being held at the moment, so Commander Shepard had the whole wing to herself. Regardless, in the VIP wing the prisoners were given many privileges over the rank and file.

For starters, they could set their own timetable, to a certain extent. Nathan had been told to bring meals to the Commander at 0900, 1300 and 1800 every day, but other than that, she could set her own hours. Technically she was not permitted to have any visitors, but in practice anyone who wanted to visit simply required orders from a high enough authority to do so. On top of this, she was allowed to spend an hour each day on a beautiful terrace lined with benches and gardens whenever she wished. Sometimes Nathan wasn’t sure if he was guarding a prisoner in a detention centre or waiting on a guest in a bed ‘n’ breakfast.

Shepard followed a similar routine each day. She would always be awake when he brought her breakfast, sitting at the table or on the couch reading something. She seemed to get up early – he often heard her moving around before that. Lunch would find her at the window, and at dinner she would be reading again, or working at something on one of the myriad datapads she had stored in there. She would always make sure to take advantage of her hour of terrace time, usually going out some time in the afternoon when the terrace would be bathed in sunlight, and there she would either read some more or just stare off into the distance. She had tried to start conversations with him a few times, but he always politely avoided her questions.

Today, however, was different.

He had collected her breakfast tray from the mess hall as he always did just before 0900, and brought it to her door. Balancing it in one hand, he waved his wrist at the sensor and the door slid open.

Shepard was on the treadmill, not the couch or at the table. The shrill high-pitched whir of the servomotor filled the room. She was running hard, just short of sprinting, and looked as though she had been running for quite some time. Sweat had soaked through her t-shirt, and small droplets ran down the side of her face. Her bun had come partially loose and thick strands now stuck to her neck. Her eyes were fixed on the treadmill’s terminal. She didn’t seem to notice that he had entered the room.

“Ma’am?” he called, carefully placing the tray on the table. She didn’t respond, only kept running, eyes on the treadmill’s display. The door was quiet, and the treadmill was quite loud – perhaps she was simply too focused and hadn’t heard him enter.

Annoyed that he couldn’t just drop off the tray and leave like he normally did, he approached her, carefully keeping his right hip, where his gun was holstered, turned away. He highly doubted this was anything quite as dramatic as an escape attempt, but training was training.

Standing to one side of the treadmill, he tried again, louder. “Shepard?”

This time it worked. Her eyes darted over to him and her shoulders visibly twitched, startled. Abruptly her stride broke, throwing her off balance. Nathan immediately saw what was going to happen and darted a hand out, grabbing her upper arm in a tight grip before she could fly off the back of the treadmill.

She stumbled to a halt, planting her feet on either side of the moving platform. “Shit,” she breathed, leaning over with her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

He let her go and took a step back. “Uh, are you okay ma’am?” he asked cautiously.

She looked up at him, as if shocked to see him standing there. “Shit,” she swore again, rubbing her arm, and to his surprise a slow grin began to spread across her face. She started to laugh.

To his chagrin, he couldn’t stop the hint of an uncertain smile from playing across his own lips. He had never seen her laugh before. He had barely even seen her smile. Maybe once? It was… irritatingly infectious.

Still laughing, and trying to breathe, she straightened and put her hands on her hips. “Briggs, if you ever tell anyone about this…” she threatened.

He raised his hands in surrender, unable to fight a grudging smile any longer. “No ma’am. If it ever got out that the great Commander Shepard was defeated by a treadmill, I don’t want to know what would happen to the galaxy’s morale.”

She grinned, cocked a hip and eyed him shrewdly. “So, Lieutenant Briggs has a sense of humour. Good to know.”

His traitorous eyes flitted downwards all of a sudden, taking in the soft curve of her waist and the taut muscles of her bare thighs.

Startled, he tore his gaze away from her, finding a point just over her left shoulder to focus on. _What the hell?_

_Are you really standing here cracking jokes with the woman who killed three hundred thousand people and was responsible for getting you kicked out of N school? Did you really just_ check her out?

Suddenly he felt a little sick to the stomach. “If you’re not injured, ma’am…?” he forced out, taking a step towards the door.

A flash of… _was that hurt_...? crossed her face, before quickly shifting to blank neutrality. She stepped off the treadmill, shutting it off, and turning her back to him. “I’m fine, Lieutenant,” she replied with a sigh.

“Ma’am,” he said quickly. He retreated, slipping out the door and listening out for the telltale click of the locking mechanism before taking a breath. He slowly took up his usual position, standing at rest just to the right of her door, as he tried to sort out the thoughts tumbling though his head. Finally, one popped up to the forefront of his mind.

_What business did she have being so… human?_

The thought was almost like a betrayal. The legendary Commander Shepard was just that – a legend, a story, a rallying cry against all who would oppose peace and freedom in the galaxy. She accomplished the impossible, made heavy decisions without batting an eye, and never gave up one inch of ground to her enemies. She was an inspiring ideal for young Alliance soldiers, and a beacon of hope to everyone else.

She didn’t… fall off treadmills, or get her feelings hurt when she was snubbed. She was supposed to be… bigger than that. Better than that. She was a theory, an ideal. Not an actual, living, breathing, feeling _person_.

It had been easy to hate her when she was a theory. When she had betrayed her own reputation by taking out the alpha relay it had proved the theory wrong. It was easy to resent her solely for shattering the dream so many people in the galaxy had bought into, never mind committing what amounted to mass murder. But now…? If she could be hurt by such a tiny snub, could she… did she… feel remorse too? In their talk back on the Citadel, Admiral Anderson had hinted at something like that. He had claimed her actions were necessary, but hadn’t elaborated further.

He found himself wanting to know. He wasn’t quite sure why, as he hadn’t been one of those to fall at the metaphorical feet of the Commander when Alliance PR had first started using her as a figurehead. He had respected her accomplishments back then, and cheered with everyone else when he found out she had thwarted a geth attack on the Citadel, but hadn’t really paid too much attention as he had been on a tour out in the far reaches of the galaxy at the time. He had heard she was killed in action a few months later, and remembered participating in a minute’s silence with his squad – mostly for their benefit – then getting blind drunk afterward. After that she had faded almost completely from his awareness until rumours that she had been undercover, not dead, began to surface and stories about the Bahak system first started getting airtime.

Now that he had actually met the legend and found an almost painfully normal human woman in its place, he wanted to know more. Why would a woman, clearly of sound mind, risk her own life to save millions of people only to go and callously end the lives of hundreds of thousands a couple of years down the track? Had something happened to her while she was undercover? Or doing whatever it was she was doing during those two years she was supposedly dead? Something that wasn’t public knowledge?

Surreptitiously, aware of the cameras in the area and the regulations against taking his attention away from his duty, he opened his omnitool to the extranet and did a search for more information on the subject.

After a few minutes, he gave up. There was plenty on there about Shepard’s early career, commendations and service, as well as numerous highly questionable ‘fan sites’, but precious little about her incarceration and nothing on whether she had offered any reason for her actions.

He closed his omnitool. He would have to ask her, then. Just as soon as he could figure out how to go about that.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Katherinosaurus for your beta work in this chapter, you saved me from some glaring errors!

**Chapter Four**

Shepard was aware that she had been sitting in the same spot for nearly the whole afternoon, but she couldn’t work up the willpower to do anything else. She kept telling herself that after the next news segment finished playing she would get up and go for a run on the treadmill, or read one of those old trashy novels she had been inexplicably provided with, but she never actually got around to it. She stayed awkwardly curled up at the end of the couch, leaning her head on one hand as she turned the new information over and over in her mind.

Earlier in the day she had decided to finally switch on the vidscreen she had been provided with. ANN24 was the only vid channel she had been given access to. She didn’t usually put much stock in news programmes designed for public consumption but she was starting to feel a bit starved for information. Her limited extranet access provided her with a trickle, but as a rule it was based on what the general public might find interesting and what might generate views for the site in question more than what actually constituted important news. She wasn’t expecting to find in-depth situation reports from ANN but she had hoped a twenty-four hour news channel might at least have a bit more variety.

She hadn’t been disappointed in that sense. Along with the human-centric news she expected from an Alliance news channel, there were various mildly interesting reports from asari, turian and salarian space relating to trade and politics. There were also numerous brief pieces ranging from human interest stories to celebrity gossip. Coming under the former category was a piece on the multiculturalism of the Citadel and how it had evolved over time and influenced Citadel culture. It was noted offhand that of late, quarians on pilgrimage had been noticeable in their absence.

That had jumped out at her. Shepard had learned from Tali that the pilgrimage was a permanent fixture in quarian culture, had been for quite some time, and was unlikely to ever be stopped for any reason. As the hub of galactic trade and commerce, many young quarians chose the Citadel as their destination, just as Tali had. This had continued after the defeat of Saren, despite the reduction in the Citadel’s perceived safety. The fact that the flow of pilgrimages to the Citadel had slowed or stopped was worrying as it likely meant the flow of pilgrimages everywhere else had stopped too.

If pilgrimages were being put on hold, it could only mean that young quarians were being required to stay with the fleet. But why?

Shepard could only think of two reasons. Either the quarian admirals had listened to Tali’s warnings about the Reapers and were beginning to prepare, or they had finally decided to start a push to take back their homeworld from the geth. As much as she wanted it to be the former, she had to concede that the most likely conclusion was the latter.

It had her worried. Worried, frustrated, and annoyed that she couldn’t do anything about it.

She was very concerned about Tali. If the quarians were going to war, Tali would be with them. Legion’s presence aboard the _Normandy_ during the last stages of their mission to stop the Collectors had begun to force Tali to question her preconceptions regarding the geth, but after years of enmity she couldn’t see her friend choosing the race of synthetics over her own people. Her duty to her people would outweigh her reservations about attacking the geth, Shepard was sure.

But it wasn’t just personal concerns weighing her mind down. Sometimes she resented her ability to do so, but the fact was that she couldn’t help but consider the possibility of a quarian war against the geth in purely tactical terms as well. Unless great leaps in technology had been made in the past couple of months, the quarians and the geth were more or less evenly matched. A war between the two races would decimate both, which would substantially reduce their ability to fight the Reapers.

Shepard had to contact Tali. She had to know what was going on. She wanted to be sure the younger woman was doing all she could to talk her people into preparing for the Reapers rather than wasting lives and military resources throwing themselves against the geth, but she knew that might not be the case. If it wasn’t, Shepard knew she would have to convince her. She couldn’t just let it go and blindly trust Tali, the stakes were far too high for that.

But there was no way for her to contact her friend – or anyone, for that matter. Her access to electronic messaging had been completely banned, in or out. Even if it hadn’t been, everything that made it through the tight cordon of censorship surrounding her was monitored scrupulously. She had no reason to think any outgoing messages would be treated differently. Any message mentioning Reapers would never see the light of day once it left her hands.

There was nothing she could do, and it was driving her crazy.

She was still curled up at the edge of the couch, watching ANN24, when Nathan brought her evening meal. She nodded to him in greeting and received a quick “ma’am” in return, then returned her attention to the vidscreen and her frustration. She barely noticed him lay the tray down on her dining table or head back towards the door, but before he made it across the room he stopped, turned around to face her and folded his arms across his chest.

“Shepard. What’s the matter?” he asked grudgingly.

She looked up at him in surprise, more from the fact that he had asked that question than that he had noticed something was up. “Huh?”

He waved an arm in her general direction. “You’re brooding. You’ve got the same expression on your face as when you fell off the treadmill the other day. I can’t leave you here alone if you’re going to fall off the bloody couch or something.”

“Fall off the--” She raised her head and sat up, glaring at him. “I’m not going to—I didn’t just _fall_ off the treadmill, you startled me!”

He smirked. “Sure, keep telling yourself that. Now spill. What’s wrong?”

She frowned. She really didn’t want to have this conversation with him. It made her tired just thinking about it. “Nothing’s wrong,” she replied, keeping her voice level with an effort and avoiding looking at him. She stood up and moved around the back of the couch then set to work unwrapping her dinner. “I was just thinking.”

“About what?” he persisted.

Her temper flared. _Really?_ After all the work he had been putting in to keeping his distance from her, nowhe wanted to know what she was thinking? She wasn’t in the mood for this. “Back off, Lieutenant,” she warned him, looking up from her dinner prep and meeting his eyes with a glare.

He shrugged, and his own annoyance was plain. “Yes, ma’am,” he said a little too fervently, then sighed and rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m not trying to be an asshole. It’s my job to look out for your… mental state. I have to tell your doctor about this.”

She grit her teeth and felt her glare intensify. They were all treating her like a goddamn _child._ Nathan shrugged again and turned to leave.

Abruptly, as she watched the only person she could talk to walk out, she deflated. She was letting her frustration get the better of her. He was just doing his job. He had even tried to make her laugh, which had to have taken some effort on his part.

“Wait,” she called.

Reluctantly, she explained her fear that the quarians were preparing to start a war. She left out any mention of Reapers, but told him how worried she was for Tali and how devastating such a war would be for the quarians. Aware that he probably only knew the Council-approved version of Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel – the one that claimed Sovereign was a geth ship – she also left out any mention of her worries for the geth.

To her mild surprise, she noted something akin to sympathy in his expression as he listened. It wasn’t quite pity, which she was grateful for, although she knew she was probably highly pitiable in her current situation. He did seem to be making an effort to lose the hostility she had first sensed from him, though.

“I really want to talk to Tali,” she finished. “I’m… not used to being out of the loop. I can’t do anything in here.”

He nodded. “I understand,” he said quietly. “But I can’t get any messages out for you.”

She shook her head and sighed. “I wasn’t asking.”

He studied her for a while. Agitated, she resumed her food prep. Finally, he continued. “I’ll try and find out what I can, though. I can’t guarantee anything.”

Surprised, she looked up at him and felt a warm trickle of gratitude. She hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t expected any of this, really. The sympathetic ear, or the offer of help. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, what it meant, but she appreciated it. “Thank you,” she replied, and the weight on her shoulders lifted by a feather. He grunted and left her to her dinner.

 

* * *

 

A couple of weeks later, Shepard had been staring out the window at the bustling terrace below, watching the office workers go about their lives with something uncomfortably close to envy when her door slid open. Nathan entered, but he wasn’t alone. Following close behind was Admiral Anderson.

“Anderson!” she exclaimed, hopping down from her perch at the window and hurrying over to take his offered hand.

Nathan turned to leave, and as he did she caught a hint of a satisfied smile. He locked the door behind himself as he left the room.

“Shepard, it’s good to see you,” Anderson replied, a warm grin lightening his features as he shook her hand.

She waved him over to the couch with a grin of her own. “What brings you here, sir?” she asked.

“I need a reason to visit a friend?”

She threw him a wry look. “Just in the neighbourhood, were you?”

Anderson sobered. “I wanted to check up on you. You know it, I know it, let’s not sugar coat it. How are you holding up in here, Shepard?”

She propped her arm up on the back of the couch and tucked a leg underneath her. “As well as I can, sir,” she replied.

“That’s not an answer.”

She sighed. “I guess not. It’s… hard, Anderson. I’m out of the loop. I’m stuck in here and I have no idea what’s going on out there.”

He nodded. “I understand. Your Lieutenant told me something along those lines as well.”

She raised an eyebrow. “My—You mean Nathan? Lieutenant Briggs? My guard? You spoke to him?”

“Of course. He asked me to come and visit you. He didn’t tell you?”

She shook her head. _Huh._

“Something made him think he could get away with telling me that although he knew I was very busy and important, I should make the time to see you. The man can be a bit of a smartass.”

An amused smile twisted at her lips. “Yes, he can.”

Anderson shifted, mimicking her posture. “How’s he working out, anyway?”

Shepard shrugged. “He’s fine. He clearly didn’t want to be anywhere near me to start with, but I think he’s started to get over that now.”

“He’s doing his job then? I had a quick chat with his CO here and she’s happy with his work. Are you?”

She gave him a look. “You want me to give him a performance evaluation?” Anderson returned her look with one of his own and she tossed him a wry grin. “I’m happy with his work, Anderson. I don’t think he’s too pleased about being here, but he does his job well. You’re a case in point. I think he asked you to come here because of a conversation we had the other day.”

She explained about her conversation with Nathan, and how she had revealed her worry for Tali and the quarians and her frustration at being stuck in a cell while the galaxy moved on without her. To her never ending gratitude Anderson then sat with her for the next hour, discussing the quarians and the geth and a myriad of other issues she hadn’t heard about. She noticed he was tempering what he told her a little, declining to explain some things in full and the like, but she was happy to let it go and take what she could get.

To her great relief, Anderson explained that the quarians had recalled all of their people, but they hadn’t moved to initiate any wars just yet. He had been in contact with Tali, in fact, and was confident she was working hard to convince her government of the Reaper threat. When he finished, the feeling that she had to get in contact with Tali as soon as possible had subsided somewhat. She still wanted to speak to her friend, of course, but now she knew that she wasn’t in any immediate danger she felt a little better about not being able to do so right away.

When Anderson had told her all he could think of, she felt that weight on her shoulders lift by another couple of feathers. The galaxy hadn’t imploded without her. She had allies working towards the same goals she was – Anderson and Admiral Hackett had both continued her efforts to convince the Council and Alliance Command that the Reapers were a threat. Garrus, Tali, Liara and Grunt had all been working on their own governments, and Garrus had even made some headway with his. All was _not_ lost. Not yet.

After Anderson left, she revelled in the feeling that although it felt like it sometimes, she wasn’t alone in this.

When Nathan arrived with her meal that evening she was waiting. “So, you ordered an Admiral to change his schedule, did you, Briggs?” she teased lightly.

The back of his neck turned a dark rosy colour as she watched. “I didn’t _order_ him. I didn’t think he would listen at all,” he grumbled, clearly embarrassed at being called on his good deed. “Look, it was that or tell your doctor you’d been feeling depressed and get you dragged out to see a shrink. I figured you’d prefer the Admiral.” He set her tray down and turned to face her, as if daring her to keep making fun of him.

She felt her posture relax and something in her chest soften a little under that stare. “Briggs, thank you,” she said, without a hint of teasing in her voice.

He cleared his throat and glanced at the floor. “You’re welcome,” he finally replied.

 

* * *

 

About three weeks after Admiral Anderson’s visit, Nathan arrived for his shift to find a message awaiting him at the central duty station. Shepard was being called to meet with the Defence Committee at 0800 this morning, apparently. It was a little early for a meeting, but she was usually up long before that anyway. He glanced at the chrono. 0658. Just before his shift was due to start. She was probably already up. He would have plenty of time to warn her.

He relieved the night shift guard of his position outside Shepard’s door and waited, sinking back onto his heels comfortably and staring down the corridor at nothing in particular. Idly he wondered what the summons was for. Something relating to her trial, no doubt. Perhaps they finally had a hearing date for her.

That would make her happy. Anderson’s visit had buoyed her mood somewhat, but he could tell she was still going stir-crazy at being stuck in limbo while she waited. She hadn’t opened up again after the conversation that had prompted him to contact Anderson, and he could see the tension lines around her eyes and mouth, the tiny cracks in her calm facade. The dark circles he had noticed under her eyes when he first met her hadn’t faded, either – if anything they’d become even more pronounced. He hoped Anderson’s visit hadn’t just acted as a reminder of what she couldn’t have.

He was surprised to find that when he looked at her now he wasn’t simply assessing her condition in order to confirm her physical and mental wellbeing as part of his job. He actually _wanted_ her to be well. The hostility he had felt toward her when he first transferred to this position was beginning to fade, and he was even grudgingly starting to appreciate her company. He was cautiously happy about the change, but he still found himself constantly conflicted every time he relaxed his guard enough to joke with her or laugh at one of her wry comments. It didn’t show itself too often, but she had a cracker of a dry wit. He was sick of always feeling like he was betraying all those dead Batarians every time he smiled at her.

But the question of her motivations for causing the deaths of said Batarians still needled at him. Her reaction to the possibility of a war between the quarians and the geth had convinced him that she wouldn’t have made such a decision lightly, but _why_ had she done it? Did she regret it?

He checked his omnitool’s chrono. 0724.

He shuffled a little closer to the door and cocked an ear, straining to listen. He didn’t hear anything. He hadn’t heard any movement at all so far this morning, in fact, which was unusual. Normally Shepard was awake and moving around in her cell by the time he arrived for his shift. The last thing he wanted to do was barge into her room and wake her up himself, but if he didn’t hear something soon he might have to.

0732\. Nothing.

0745\. Still nothing.

Grumbling, he hit the door release and stepped into Shepard’s room. The shutters were drawn over the window, leaving the room in darkness. When the door closed behind him, the only light remaining came from his omnitool. In the dim orange glow at first glance the room appeared to be empty. Then his eyes fell on the bed, and an elongated figure beneath the sheets. Inwardly he winced. The fact that she was still sleeping was probably a good thing overall – he knew she needed it – but he still felt keenly that he had intruded on her private space.

Shepard was laying on her side, facing toward him, hair falling messily over one side of her face. One hand had snaked up under her pillow, while the other rested on the edge of the bed. Her shoulders were curled inwards and her legs beneath the sheet were almost gracefully splayed out on the mattress.

He caught his breath as he took a closer look at her face, squinting in the low light. Her expression was anything _but_ relaxed. Her forehead was creased and her eyes were squeezed tightly shut. She was grimacing, and now that he was looking more closely, she appeared deathly still. It almost looked as though she wasn’t breathing.

He hurried over quickly, concerned, but stopped himself with at least a couple of metres between himself and the bed. Her shoulders had lifted slightly, almost imperceptibly. She was breathing. Hopefully she was just having a bad dream.

He rubbed his nose. He knew firsthand how violent trained soldiers could be if startled out of a deep sleep. He made sure she had plenty of space, just in case, then hesitantly called, “Shepard?”

Her eyes blinked open and she sucked in a quick gasping breath, disoriented. She did nothing but breathe for a moment, groggy, then focused on him. “Briggs… I… what time is it?” she asked, voice heavy with sleep.

He shifted into something resembling parade rest and studiously lifted his eyes to the wall on the other side of the bed in an attempt to give her a sliver of privacy. “It’s almost 0800,” he told her. “The Defence Committee would like to see you.”

“Oh,” she murmured sleepily and pulled herself into a sitting position, running a hand through her hair. Her hair was longer than he had expected – it hung down to her shoulder blades and fell haphazardly over her face. She was wearing a shirt and shorts, both twisted out of place. She couldn’t have slept well. It was obviously taking some effort to gather herself. “Thank you. I’ll be ready by then,” she replied.

He hesitated before leaving, unsure if he wanted to ask the question or not. “Shepard… Are you all right? It looked like you were… dreaming.”

_Oh, crap. Ugh._ As soon as he said it, he wanted to take it back. Asking if she was okay was fine, but why did he go and ask her about her _dreams_? Dreams were usually very private. Out of bounds. He opened his mouth to backtrack, but she beat him to it.

“I’m fine, Lieutenant,” she snapped, eyes flashing. “You can leave. I’ll be ready shortly.”

_Fuck_. He had definitely overstepped his bounds. “Yes ma’am,” he said quickly, and ducked out of the room.

That look on her face had been disquieting, though. That grimace. What _had_ she been dreaming about? He shouldn’t have asked her about it, but…

He shook his head. No. The things she had been through… He probably didn’t want to know.

Perhaps she had just inadvertently answered his question about remorse.

After about ten minutes, he heard the muffled slap of a palm on the locked door. He opened it, and she strode out, impatiently waiting for him to lock the door behind her before heading straight for the Committee chambers. She had dressed in full BDU’s and her hair was pulled up into a thick tail at the back of her head. He hurried to keep up, at least trying to maintain some semblance of doing his job and escorting her. Luckily in this, his height gave him the advantage, and he was able to catch up quickly.

It didn’t end up making a difference though. When they reached the council chambers she was ushered straight in and he was left to wait outside. Resigned, he found an empty bench and sat, leaning his head back against the wall to wait.

 

* * *

 

Two hours later Shepard emerged. She did not look happy.

He made to stand as she came over, but she waved him down and sat heavily on the bench beside him. Leaning her head back against the wall, she closed her eyes.

Well, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake as he had this morning by opening his idiot mouth. He leaned back and sat with her in silence, slipping back into his role as her guard and starting to watch people a little more carefully.

He saw no threats – he hadn’t really expected to – but the hostile expressions on some of their faces as they noticed Shepard made him uncomfortable. Most were polite and either nodded in his direction or completely ignored him and the Commander both, but a few stared quite openly at her. He kept a keen eye on their expressions, witnessing as they started with recognition, then inevitably flitted to either pity or disgust. Sometimes even outright anger.

He wanted to say something a couple of times, but kept his mouth shut. What could he possibly say to defend her? Anything he said would be easily countered by a thorough ‘yes, but mass murder!’ and the argument would be over before it had even started. Would she even want to be defended? Somehow he doubted it. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“You looked at me like that when you first arrived,” came a murmur from beside him.

He glanced over at her sharply. His discomfort must have been more obvious than he thought it had been. Her lids were hooded, but she had been watching. He made to protest, albeit half-heartedly because he knew she was right, but she continued.

“You did. Lots of people do.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter right now.”

“You don’t care?” he asked, surprise warring with regret over his initial treatment of her and how perceptive of it she had obviously been.

She sat up and leaned her elbows on her thighs, interlacing her fingers and staring at the ground between her boots. “I… don’t like it,” she admitted. “But when I’m sitting in here instead of out there,” she waved a hand in the general direction of the sky, and space beyond, “it doesn’t really make a difference what people think of me, does it?”

“I suppose not,” he replied quietly, taking note of the bitterness in her voice. He had been right before – Anderson’s visit had helped, but she was still keenly feeling her isolation.

Pushing off her thighs, she stood up and looked at him. “I’d like to head out to the terrace for a while.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied. The two of them walked together through the halls, and this time she let him keep up with her. They walked through the senior officer detention centre wing and then out through a side door tucked away between two of the cells. The door lead to a narrow hall, and another door. Through that was the terrace.

It was a beautiful place. White stone lined raised garden beds filled with flowers, green grass and even the occasional small tree. Wind rustled through the trees and the grass, a soft, calming sound. He caught the scent of freshly mown grass and something floral on the wind.

Old style wooden park benches were scattered around in various places. Shepard chose one near one of the small trees and close to the edge of the terrace. The balcony overlooked a lake far below, the surface of which shimmered with the reflection of the sun.

Nathan took up a position nearby, beneath the tree. Normally he wouldn’t have placed himself quite so close, but he sensed she would appreciate the company today.

When she didn’t speak, he decided to fill the silence himself, hoping he wouldn’t say the wrong thing this time. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind me asking, what happened in there?” he asked carefully.

She sighed, and for a moment he thought he had done it again. But then she replied in a calm, albeit frustrated voice, “They wanted me to go over the evidence with them.”

“Go over the evidence? But you turned yourself in, didn’t you? You’re going to plead guilty? They shouldn’t need too much evidence for that.”

She looked up at him sharply, and he could see her mind working, evaluating. The sun shining through the leaves of the nearby tree set dappled shadows over her face. She paused for a long time before replying. “Not the evidence against me. There’s a… threat out there. One they need to know about. Understand. Start preparing for,” she explained reluctantly.

“A threat? What do you mean?” he asked, confused. Was she talking about the Collectors? Sure, they had been a threat for a time, kidnapping whole human colonies and harassing the border. But that had all stopped a few months ago, which kept with the Collectors’ established pattern. They would show themselves every few years, then retreat again only to emerge in another few years. There was nothing particularly worrying about that, other than the obvious need to step up patrols and shore up defences in certain areas. Were they back again? Making another push?

Could this perhaps have something to do with the dream he had interrupted this morning? He watched her, hoping she would elaborate.

 

* * *

 

Shepard held his eyes, studying his reaction. She wasn’t sure how much she should tell him – in fact, she had probably already said too much. It was vitally important that the _governments_ of the galaxy know about and understand the Reaper threat, but the last thing she wanted to do was start a panic by allowing it to get out to the general public in an uncontrolled manner. It would only scare people prematurely. They would need to know about it soon, but _too_ soon and they would start doing stupid things in the name of trying to save themselves.

Nathan Briggs did not seem like the type to fly off into a panic, though. Nor was he the type to tell all his friends. She had only known him for a short amount of time – and for a lot of that time he had clearly disliked her, even if that had recently changed – but her gut told her he could be trusted. He had a solid, stable presence. He could be flippant at times, but the way he conducted himself in his duty as her personal guard gave her confidence in him. Even now, safely ensconced behind layers of security at Alliance HQ, he had placed himself between her and the door, close to the cover of a raised garden bed and near enough to the balcony that he would be able to see any threats from that direction before they got too close.

And yet… if she told him, it would only put him in the same position she was. Knowing something big was coming, something with the goal of wiping out all intelligent life in the galaxy, but powerless to do anything about it. What was the point of that? Having someone nearby to confide in would be nice, but she couldn’t do that to him.

She sat back on the bench with a resigned sigh and gazed out over the balcony at the lake below. After a while, she gave him the only response she could think of. “It’s classified, Briggs. I’m sorry.”

 

* * *

 

Nathan let out a huff of laughter and fought the urge to roll his eyes. Of course it was classified. He should have known that was the answer he would get. It was frustrating but there was nothing to do but laugh about it.

He smiled ruefully. “You know, that’s the worst thing about holding a conversation with a senior officer,” he commented drily. “No matter what you’re talking about, something will always turn out to be classified. Even if you’re talking about tomorrow’s weather report. Suddenly they’ll come out with,” he switched to his best Admiral Hackett impression, “‘ _Er, well, I’d like to tell you more about the chance of rain tomorrow but I’m afraid that’s highly classified and I’d have to kill you.’_ And boom, there goes the conversation.”

Shepard looked a bit shocked for a moment, then suddenly snorted and dissolved into laughter. Surprised, he grinned back. _Did she just snort?_ He hadn’t thought it was quite _that_ funny but he would take what he could get. Between breaths, she managed to ask, “Was that supposed to be Admiral Hackett?”

“Well, I tell you this only because you can’t write me up at the moment, ma’am, but yes, it may have been Admiral Hackett,” he confirmed sheepishly.

“God, you sound exactly like him. _Shepard, someone lost a puppy on a remote colony at the ass end of the Terminus systems, go check it out, would you? Hackett out._ That was terrible, Briggs. Terrible. Don’t do that again,” she mock-chastised, chuckling. “Only, please do.”

He burst into laughter. His impression had been bad but hers was a thousand times worse.“Your wish is my command, ma’am,” he agreed cheerfully.


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

Shepard had been reading over the latest, heavily redacted for-public-consumption reports coming out of the Terminus systems when the door to her room slid open. Lieutenant Briggs entered, balancing two dinner trays precariously in one hand. She glanced at the chrono – it was right on 1800 hours, exactly when the reliable Lieutenant always brought her dinner. Normally he didn’t bring his own as well, though, which peaked her interest.

He carefully set both the trays down on the tiny dining table. “Shepard,” he greeted her. With an overdone, clumsy flourish of his arm and a horrible attempt at a deep, formal waiter’s voice, he added, “Would you care to join me for dinner?”

She blinked, and a smile twitched at her mouth. Okay, she could play along. “Why Lieutenant Briggs, I thought you’d never ask,” she replied, matching his playful tone. She hopped up from her perch at the window, setting the datapad down, and took the chair he held for her with an exaggerated bow.

He took the seat opposite and began unwrapping both their meals, starting with hers in true mock-chivalrous form. She sat back and waited, an amused smile spreading across her lips. He spoke as he worked. “So, how was your day? Did you finish that crossword puzzle? See anything interesting out the window?”

She gave him a withering look. “ _My_ day was fine, thanks. How about yours? See anything exciting on the wall across from my door?”

He chuckled. “Ooh, ouch.”

Both dinners unwrapped, they tucked in. “I watched a lot of ANN24 today. I heard they’re planning on making Blasto 2 next year,” Shepard told him around a mouthful of potato. “But the lead actress is holding out for more credits.”

“Sweet, I loved that movie. She was good, too, she deserves a larger cut.”

Shepard shrugged. “Eh, I don’t know. She looked the part but didn’t seem to be too great of an actor… Wait, why are we even talking about this?”

“You started it.”

“True. Okay. A real question for you. You’re clearly not a career MP, so how did you end up here?” she asked, starting on some chicken. That was one surprisingly good point about prison. The food – or at least the food _she_ got – was always fresh and always the real thing. It made a nice change from military rations.

She didn’t miss his grimace despite how quickly he tried to hide it. “Orders direct from Admiral Anderson, ma’am.”

She glanced up at him. “Really? Huh. Explains why he was so interested in your performance.” At his sudden look of concern, she continued. “Don’t worry. I lied.” He rolled his eyes at her and she grinned.

“Anyway, I was due to ship out to N school in a week’s time when I received the orders to come here instead,” Nathan explained.

Shepard raised her eyebrows and set her fork down. So _that_ was why he had been so hostile toward her when he first arrived. Or at least, it had to be one of the reasons. The poor guy had been pulled out of N school to stand in a hallway all day. “I’m sorry, Briggs. That’s rough. Really rough,” she said. On a whim she reached across the table and touched his arm, just for a second. His skin was warm beneath her fingertips. She pulled her hand back, but his warmth lingered, just for a moment.

He glanced at her hand and smiled bitterly, shaking his head. “You don’t need to apologise, it had nothing to do with you,” he told her, returning his attention to his food.

She snorted. “I think it had a lot to do with me,” she retorted. “Or rather, it had a lot to do with what Anderson thinks I need while I’m in here.”

He paused for a moment, eyebrows raised, bitterness replaced by a sly smile as he caught the whiff of a potential joke. “What he thinks you _need,_ huh?”

She made a face at him. “I didn’t mean-- _Briggs_.” He waved it off, winking at her before he took another bite of his chicken. She continued, “What I meant was that I think he wanted someone with me that I would feel comfortable talking to. Your field experience probably had something to do with it, as well as the fact that you’re a Lieutenant. He probably thought I’d be able to relate to you more easily because you have a bit of experience and some rank.”

“Yep, those are the reasons he gave me too. Although, there are a thousand other Lieutenants with field experience he could have sent over here. Why pick one who had just been accepted for ICT?”

“Well, maybe the ICT nomination was part of it. But I don’t think those are the only reasons he chose you. There was also Medena,” she said. “You did get yourself a couple of medals for that.”

He looked up. “You’ve read my file? I thought you didn’t have extranet access.”

“I don’t, but I have basic intranet and a _lot_ of time on my hands. Information on Alliance victories isn’t hard to find.”

She paused, considering her next words. After reading the file, she had come to the reluctant conclusion that he was a very, very lucky man. On the surface, he was a hero and had been awarded his medals as such – just as she had been after Akuze and the Citadel – but when you read a little further into it, heroics were only the start of the story.

On Medena, he and his squad had saved the lives of a dozen scientists who had been working on the planet and taken out a previously hidden geth base along the way. However, the way he had conducted the operation was nothing short of irresponsible. Even dangerous. And he had done it with the scientists – all civilians – in tow, ostensibly because the mission required their tech capabilities. The report didn’t go into nearly enough detail about why he had made that particular choice, considering he had a full squad of marines with him, including tech specialists.

Based on that one mission she certainly wouldn’t have recommended him to N school, but she supposed he could have grown since then and led plenty of successful operations. It had been two years ago, after all. If he had been green back then he might not necessarily be now. Besides, she wasn’t his training officer and she wasn’t exactly in a position to give him a lecture on it in her current situation. So she simply said, “Medena turned out very well.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, and she spotted a quick, proud smile as it touched his lips. Inwardly she winced. _Surely someone chewed him out for it. At least for using a bunch of civilians as tech specialists when it wasn’t necessary._

Perhaps they hadn’t. There had been a strong media blitz by Alliance PR after she had defeated Saren, looking to capitalise on the sudden good press she had generated. Maybe they had pushed him into the light of the cameras too quickly to have a really good look at the mission reports, or maybe they just didn’t care. Heroes, especially heroes that were a little more pleasing to the eye than your average Alliance marine grunt, were hard to come by.

Well, N school would sort him out. She wasn’t sure how he had managed to get nominated, but now that he had, he would have a hard time getting away with that sort of recklessness at the villa.

They both finished off their meals, and Shepard sat back with a contented sigh. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone if they asked, but she had needed this. It had been far too long, even prior to her incarceration, since she had sat down with a friend and simply ate a meal together. No impending missions to geth bases, no Batarian slavers to intercept, just food and company. “Thanks for dinner, Nathan,” she said with a smile.

He returned the smile with one of his own. “No problem, Shepard,” he replied. He glanced over at the door to her room, and his smile took on a decidedly mischievous slant. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out something that looked suspiciously like a flask.

Her eyebrows shot up and she leaned forward. “Is that what I think it is?”

“If you think it’s engine lubricant, then no, but you’re surprisingly close,” he replied. He unscrewed the lid and poured a finger’s worth of greenish-blue liquid into her empty glass, then pushed it over to her across the table.

She lifted it to her nose and sniffed cautiously, then jerked away at the strong smell of alcohol. Only one type of alcohol had that particular heady aroma. She gave him a suspicious look. “Just how much ryncol did you put in this?”

He gave her his best innocent look in return. “Well, it’s not _all_ ryncol.” He poured his own drink and without waiting for her, tossed it down in one easy gulp. He grinned triumphantly, eyes watering, and gestured at her expectantly.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You can’t just get drunk while you’re on duty, Lieutenant.”

He waved her concern away. “Don’t worry, Corporal Menzies is covering for me. Drink up.”

Damn, she could really do with a drink. She swirled the blue liquid around in the bottom of her glass, then quickly downed it all in one swallow. She winked at him and sat back comfortably, daintily crossing one leg over the other.

He laughed. “Okay, Shepard, it’s on.” He poured again, for the two of them, and they both drank.

The buzz hit her pretty quickly, despite her Cerberus-enhanced liver – not surprising if there really was a lot of ryncol in that drink – and after they had goaded each other into a few more shots Shepard started to feel a little dizzy. She took comfort in the fact that her drinking buddy seemed to be having a worse time of it, though he drank less than she did. He moved a little slower as he poured another shot, being a bit more careful. He managed to get all the liquid into the glasses rather than on the table, but he didn’t seem to be quite as precise with the amount this time.

He passed her glass over and she finished it off as quickly as she had the previous ones, smirking as he gave her an incredulous look. The dizziness intensified, and she decided it would be against her best interests to try standing up at this point. Nope, no standing. She would just sit here, where she was, and enjoy the feeling of warmth spreading through her bones.

Briggs was a bit slower this time, and the look in his eyes was pained. He finished off his glass in two swallows and protested, “You know, you’re a lot little… littler than me, Shepard. Where are you… putting all that?” he waved in the general direction of their glasses.

She wasn’t entirely sure to be honest, Cerberus upgrades aside, but she had a good answer for that. “I’m _Commander Fucking Shepard_. I’m good at everything. Even drinking. _Especially_ drinking.” Ha! That was a good line. She made a note to use it more often.

“Except treadmills,” Briggs retorted with a sly grin.

“That _totally_ wasn’t my fault,” she protested, leaning forward over the edge of the table, dimly aware that she should probably be very emphatic about this, because it _totally_ wasn’t her fault. “I told you before! You… startled me!”

“I _caught_ you!” He stabbed a pointed finger at her across the table. “I _saved_ you.”

“Pfft,” she scoffed and pushed herself to her feet, forgetting her resolution to not do that. She pointed her own finger at Briggs and continued, “Nobody saves Commander… Fucking…” she trailed off as the room began to spin. “Woah. Think I’ll sit down now.” She sat down hard and closed her eyes. “That’s some… good… ryncol, Briggs.”

“Hell yeah it is.”

“Think we should stop now. You’re prob… probably a bad guard when you’re… drunk,” she finished carefully.

He snorted, leaning back and relaxing into his chair. “I’m off du… duty. But even if I wasn’t… I’m still sharp. I could totally gua… guard you.” She snorted and he glared at her. “I could! It’s not… not very hard. I’m not even… really a guard _._ I don’t do… guard things. I bring you stuff. And follow you… places.” He lapsed into a comfortable silence.

She nodded, enjoying the way the room spun slightly as her head moved. “True. But you’re good at bringing me stuff and… following me places.”

She hung her head back and gazed at the ceiling foggily for a while, enjoying the buzz. After a while she looked at him again and mused, “Do you think they’ll leave me here forever?”

“Nah,” he replied. “You’ll be… ackw… acquitted once the Batarians have calmed down a bit. You’ll get comm… community service, or something.”

She frowned. “Fuck,” she drew the word out like a groan. “How much comm… community service would make up for killing three… three hundred thousand… Fuck. I’ll be picking up litter and… cleaning toilets for years.” Even as the words left her mouth, she cringed. Wow, that was in bad taste. Yeah, she had had enough to drink.

“For the rest of… rest of your life.”

She grimaced despondently, still feeling guilty about her previous off-colour statement. “Still wouldn’t be enough.”

He nodded sombrely in agreement. A moment later, he looked up, and with the boldness of someone who was completely inebriated, asked, “Why did you do it?”

She blinked, and remembered standing at the comms terminal on the Project asteroid, staring out at the inexorably approaching mass relay and trying in vain to warn the colonists to evacuate. Knowing they wouldn’t have time. Knowing she couldn’t have made any decision other than destroying that relay, no matter the cost. Knowing she might not be able to get off the asteroid before it hit and making her peace with that.

She got up, again forgetting her resolution to stay seated. She felt like she had to move. “I had to,” she replied, wobbling precariously for the first few steps. Annoyed at that, she concentrated on walking steadily, maintaining her balance.

“But why?” Nathan persisted, eyes following her.

_Because the fucking Reapers would have arrived and killed us all six months ago if I hadn’t,_ she thought to herself with a flash of white-hot anger. But even in her drunken state, she knew she couldn’t tell Nathan that. “Clas… classified,” she mumbled, a hard edge to her voice.

“Oh, come on. Really? Again?”

She whirled on him and took a quick step to stay balanced. “Yes, again. Stop pushing it!”

He shot to his feet, angry too now. “No! Fuck that! You can’t just get away with _murdering_ hundreds of thousands of people for no fucking reason!”

“No reason? I had a _hell_ of a good reason.” She paced again, and stopped at the window, looking out at the lights below. “I just can’t tell you about it. _Fuck_ this.”

Fuck all of this, fuck everything. Being stuck in this room while the races of the galaxy _ignored_ their own impending destruction, not being able to talk about the Reapers with her only link to the outside world, not being able to convince the people who needed to the most to listen to her, being so completely _powerless_. Fuck it all.

Before she realised what she was doing, her fist flew out and slammed into the military-grade armoured glass.

 

* * *

 

Nathan jumped to his feet, anger forgotten, almost tripping as he reached her in a couple of quick strides. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her around. “Shepard! What the hell?” he yelled at her.

She blinked, jerked back and then seemed to just deflate. “Uh…” she began, but trailed off. She appeared lost for a moment, then her face contorted into a mixture of seething anger and sheer frustration. He had the sudden realisation that she had allowed everything she normally kept hidden to rush to the surface, boiling over in a moment of weakness. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but he couldn’t tell if that was from the alcohol or unshed tears. He didn’t see a single one of those. Her eyes were dry.

A fierce rush of affection for her rolled over him like a wave. She was drunk and hurting and had been through more than any human being should ever have to go through, but she was _not_ crying.

He took hold of her hand properly. He carefully examined the skin, running his thumbs over her knuckles to check for dislocations or tears. He checked each finger, one by one. There were no injuries that he could see, but she would probably have a radiant purple bruise the next day.

Satisfied that she wasn’t hurt, he found that he didn’t want to let her hand go just yet. It was small against his palm, smooth and warm. She had turned her attention to the night sky outside the window, and the distant but barely visible stars. Her agitation was palpable. Gently, not really knowing if this was the ryncol talking or not, he allowed his fingers to curl protectively around her hand.

She turned her head slightly, and looked up at him. Slowly, the fury drained away. Her eyes were a deep, shimmering blue, a colour he was sure he had never seen before. Or perhaps he had… on arrival at Earth his shuttle had entered the atmosphere directly above the Pacific Ocean. They had dipped under the clouds, and there, at the edge of the horizon, the ocean had been that particular blue.

She was warm too. He was standing quite close, close enough to feel her body heat. His eyes drifted to her lips, soft and full and slightly parted. Distantly, he knew he should step away. But he… didn’t want to.

 

* * *

 

Shepard gazed up at Nathan, aware through the haze of ryncol clouding her brain that she was staring, but too focussed on what she was staring at to worry too much about it. Her eyes drank in the soft curve of his lips, offset with the strong lines of his jaw. His rich brown hair was slightly tousled, as it always seemed to be, and he had the beginnings of a thin layer of stubble as he always did by the end of the day. She was close enough to see that stubble now, the tiny hairs giving his face a shadow of depth. She had a sudden urge to touch it, to lay her fingers gently against his cheek and feel the rough edges against her skin.

Her hand was halfway to his face before she remembered where they were.

She stepped away quickly, gently pulling her hand free from his. She cleared her throat. Her voice, when she spoke, was a little deeper than she had intended. “You should go, Lieutenant,” she said, intentionally using his rank. He started to protest, but she cut him off. “I’m fine. I… apologise for the dramatics. I’m okay. I… I think I should sleep this off.”

He took a step back, reluctantly. He appeared to have sobered up a little. He slowly collected his flask from the table and turned to leave, then turned back hesitantly. “I’ll be outside tomorrow morning… if you need me,” he said.

She nodded. “Thank you,” she replied, watching as he left the room. The door slid shut behind him, lock clicking into place.

She slowly took a seat in one of the chairs. She laid the hand she had hit the window with on her thigh, flexing it experimentally.

_Of all the stupid bloody things she could have done…_

She grimaced. Her hand was sore, unsurprisingly, and her head still swam a bit, although the adrenaline had dulled that somewhat. She would have a nice bruise the next morning to go with what was sure to be a killer hangover.

It was her gun hand, too. She snorted morosely. Perhaps she should have thought ahead and hit the window with the hand that _didn’t_ hold her gun. Not that it mattered right now. There was nothing to shoot in the detention centre, other than the defence committee, and she highly doubted shooting them would help them acknowledge the Reaper threat. She was sure she could manage holding a fork with her left hand for a while.

Now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, she was surprised and ashamed at herself. She had never lost it like that before.

She had been in plenty of situations to warrant losing it. Waking up on a table in a Cerberus lab only to find out that two years had passed while she had been raised from the dead and rebuilt would have to be right up there on the list of Things That It Would Be Okay To Lose It About. But she hadn’t. She had kept it together like a champion. Having to make a choice between Ash and Kaidan on Virmire would be up there, along with bearing the brunt of Kaidan’s survivor’s guilt when he found out. But she held it together through that, too.

Perhaps it was just the final straw. Just another impossible situation piled on top of all the rest. Her brain, even with its Cerberus enhancements, had had enough, couldn’t take it anymore, and with a liberal dose of inhibition-relaxing alcohol had simply let go.

No doubt Briggs’ presence had helped with that. For some inexplicable reason, she felt comfortable around him, trusted him. His touch on her hand had been… And his soft brown eyes…

She shook her head. It had been nice. Fine. She could admit it. But that was all she would allow herself to do. Admit it, and move on. There was nothing else she _could_ do.

She would have to do the same thing with her anger and frustration at being trapped here in this cell, too. Admit she felt it, acknowledge it, and set it aside. Compartmentalise. She had more important things to worry about. The committee may not believe her now, but they _would._ She would make sure of it.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for some action! Thanks to meleba for beta-ing this chapter. Any remaining errors are mine.

**Chapter Six**

Nathan arrived on time for his shift the next morning, despite his pounding head. That ryncol sure had packed a punch. It was nothing like any of the liquor originating on Earth. Even the strongest stuff from Earth generally took a while longer and a greater quantity to do what the ryncol had done in a few shots and _maybe_ half an hour.

He winced as the sun caught a metal surface through the windows in the guard station. He should have brought something more mundane than ryncol to their little dinner, but Shepard didn’t seem like a red wine or gin and tonic type of woman.

He had wanted to engineer a way for her to just relax for a few hours, where she could take her mind off whatever the big looming threat she had told him about on the terrace was. He had thought a quick drink would do it, but damned if it didn’t shake some things loose that were probably better left tied down.

He was sure she wouldn’t thank him for that. She always played her cards close to her chest, never really let on if something was bothering her. Before last night, she had only opened up a little, and only a couple of times. She had only hinted at something simmering beneath the façade. But last night, it seemed like it had all come roaring up to the surface and smashing into her window.

And after that…

Her outburst had shaken him, and he had reacted on instinct, trying to protect her – and if that wasn’t a ridiculous sentiment when applied to Commander Shepard, he didn’t know what was – by stopping her from injuring herself while she wasn’t thinking straight. He had taken hold of her hand first to restrain her, then to check she wasn’t hurt. And then, even though he knew he should have, he hadn’t been able to let go.

When she had tilted her head up to look at him, her eyes…

He shook his head and roughly pushed that thought aside, grabbing the datapad with the day’s notices. She had sent him away – _with good reason!_ – and he had slunk moodily back to his apartment, barely making it through the doorway before collapsing onto his bed and passing out.

He had let himself get too close, and made the mistake of letting the drunken haze shrouding his mind at the time control his actions. The fact that she had seemed to reciprocate, just for a moment, meant nothing. She had been drunk too. And no matter how beautiful her eyes were, she was a _prisoner._ He was assigned as her guard. Looking at her like that, thinking about her like that, was all kinds of wrong _._

Besides, she was so far out of his league she was practically in another galaxy.

He looked over the day’s notices, trying to clear his throbbing head. Shepard had another meeting with the Alliance Defence Committee at 1100. At least she would have time to eat some breakfast this time. Last time she had been dragged out at 0800 and kept all through the morning, meaning she had to skip it entirely. Petty, but he doubted it had been intentional.

He headed over to the detention block, dodging people as he went. The corridors were busy today, and people were moving quickly, heads down, murmuring to one another in strained tones. It was obvious that something was up. He wondered what was going on. Nothing had been in his notices for today, so it had to either be something unplanned or something that didn’t concern him.

Shepard’s wing was quiet, though, and the night shift guard had nothing to say when he relieved him. Nathan took up his post as he always did in the mornings, listening to the muffled noises of Shepard moving around beyond the cell door.

He wondered if he should say something to her. Apologise for providing the ryncol, perhaps. Or for his unprofessional behaviour. He grimaced. _Probably both._ He didn’t want to barge in on her this early though. He figured it could wait until he brought her breakfast.

His omnitool pinged.

Surprised, he raised his arm and brought up the interface. He had it programmed to be discrete while he was on duty, and that included playing no audio unless an incoming message was marked as urgent, priority one. He had never received a priority one message before, not while he wasn’t deployed. But sure enough, there was one sitting in his inbox. He opened it up.

_Received: 0711 Vancouver Local Time_

_Sent: G. Laurence On Behalf Of Alliance Defence Command PRIORITY 1_

_Recipient: Lieutenant Nathan Briggs_

_Message: Shepard required to report to ADC Situation Room IMMEDIATELY. End._

The message left no room for standing around and wondering what had happened to warrant Shepard’s presence in the situation room. Priority One orders were to be acted on immediately. Frowning, he shut off the omnitool’s interface and spun around, waving the lock to the cell door open.

“Shepard,” he called as he stepped into the room.

She leaned out of the bathroom alcove, towel wrapped around her hair, but thankfully fully dressed in t-shirt and navy BDU pants. He was fervently glad she wasn’t half-naked. He couldn’t have handled that level of awkward in his current condition. “Not so loud,” she protested.

Looked like she had a hangover too. No time to worry about that now, though. “We have to go,” he told her. “You’ve been called to the Situation Room, priority one.”

Her eyes narrowed, and he suddenly found himself remembering his first impression of her from five months ago, when they had first met. He had thought she looked _soft._ He wondered how on Earth he could ever have thought _that._ With her jaw tightened, eyes hard and lips pressed together in a tense line she was a long way from soft _._

She rung her hair out with the towel quickly and efficiently, then used her fingers to gather it into a tight bun. She was favouring her right hand slightly, allowing her left to do most of the work. “Any further information, Lieutenant?” she asked in clipped tones as she worked.

“No, ma’am,” he responded, her tone inspiring his military discipline to kick in without requiring conscious thought.

She grabbed her BDU jacket from its hangar and strode over. “Let’s go,” she prompted, and he quickly unlocked the door and fell in behind her as she made her way out of the detention centre, pulling on her jacket as she went and rolling the sleeves up to her elbows. She dodged smoothly through the busy corridors and by the time they reached the situation room, the jacket was on and buttoned, gold rank bars prominent on her collar. Idly he wondered why they hadn’t bothered removing those when she was stripped of her rank.

The anteroom was filled with people, and Nathan was suddenly aware that he had a real job to do. Today he wasn’t there just for show. All were in uniform, but most were of low rank, especially compared to the very high value target it was his job to protect. Crowds were a perfect disguise for potential threats, and low-ranking military personnel were easy to infiltrate. He scanned the room, looking for said threats, and was ready when a man stepped forward as they entered.

“Shepard!” he called, hurrying over.

Nathan stepped in front of his charge, hand drifting automatically to his sidearm. He had barely moved, however, when Shepard laid a hand on his arm and stepped nimbly around him. “Kaidan,” she greeted the man, stepping forward to meet him and allowing him to pull her into a bear hug.

Nathan felt a momentary flash of irritation at being pushed aside, as well as the sense that he might have overreacted, but he dismissed both. He had done what his job required of him, nothing more or less. And the fact that Shepard clearly knew _this_ man did not reduce the potential danger from the other people in the room. He kept his eyes open, scanning, while the two spoke.

“What’s going on, Kaidan?” he heard Shepard ask.

“I don’t know, I just got here,” the man – Kaidan – responded. He sounded worried. “I’m supposed to present a report to the Defence Chiefs at 0800. Shepard… there hasn’t been much information coming out of HQ. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” Nathan heard strained undertones in her voice and knew she was lying. “Just frustrated, being stuck in here.”

An aide ducked out of the situation room and beckoned at him. She pointed to Shepard and gestured back through the door. He nodded in reply and turned to Shepard. “Ma’am, they want you now,” he told her.

She nodded curtly. “I’ll talk to you later, Kaidan,” she said, gripping his hand briefly before hurrying after the aide. Kaidan nodded a farewell before heading off in the other direction and Nathan followed Shepard, a little unsure of what he should be doing now. Part of his duty as a guard was to stay with his prisoner at all times, both for protection and to prevent escape. While he highly doubted either role would actually be needed, he understood that it was also his duty – probably his primary duty – to keep up appearances of both at all times.

He wasn’t sure if that extended into such a highly classified space as the Alliance Headquarters Situation Room though. Normally, it most definitely would not, and he would wait outside as he had done for Shepard’s earlier meeting with the Defence Committee. But in the current environment, which was a step above organised chaos and thus increased the chances of both attack and escape tenfold, he wasn’t sure.

_What the hell,_ he thought, and trailed her into the room. To his surprise, no one told him to leave.

The room was huge. Banks of monitors lined the first half of the room on either side, terminals occupied by bustling Alliance personnel. As he and Shepard entered, some of them looked up, eyes darting to Shepard, before resuming their work. There was a large expanse of open space between the door and a massive table at the other end of the room, which sat up on a dais and was surrounded by the Defence Chiefs themselves. All were standing, arguing with one another and occasionally gesticulating towards the holographical star map hovering over the table. Parts of the star map were an ominous red.

One of the Admirals noticed them and beckoned to Shepard. She hurried over and he followed. “Shepard,” he greeted her, sparing a quick glance for Nathan but otherwise ignoring him. “We’ve got a problem.”

She bounded up the steps to the dais. He took up a position on the ground floor nearby, unobtrusive but within reach. “Is it the Reapers?” she asked, voice low and tense but pitched just high enough for those on the dais to hear her. _Reapers?_ He hadn’t heard that term before.

One of the other Admirals responded. All had stopped arguing and had turned their attention to her. “We… don’t know. The whole Batarian Hegemony has gone dark. We were hoping you could confirm it for us.”

She stepped up to the table and commandeered one of the terminals. Out of the corner of his eye, Nathan saw her expression harden as she scanned the information on the screen. After a while she straightened, then appeared to think better of that and planted her arms on the table before her, leaning forward and resting most of her upper body weight on them. “Fuck,” she whispered. He was pretty sure he was the only one who had heard that. Something cold settled itself in the pit of his stomach. _The threat she was talking about that day on the terrace… Reapers…_

She continued, louder. “It’s them. Signatures match. Ships match. News reports match. The Reapers are here.”

A rustle went through the room, and Nathan turned to find the personnel who had been working on the terminals at the far end of the room had stopped what they were doing and were watching. Some of them exchanged fearful glances. The admirals were reacting in a similar fashion. One of them, a thin man with greying hair, finally spoke up. “But… it’s impossible—“

Shepard cut him off sharply. “The evidence is right there, Admirals. The time for arguing is over. We need to _act._ ”

Another admiral spoke up, this time a woman with short hair and a pinched expression. “How do we _stop them_ , Shepard?”

Nathan swallowed. The amount to which the Defence Chiefs of the Alliance deferred to Shepard on this subject was… unsettling. Surely she was not the only one who had any experience with these… Reapers? Whatever they were?

“Stop them?” Shepard repeated incredulously, voice edging dangerously toward fury. Nathan knew it was taking a massive effort for her to tamp down on months of frustration and inaction. “It’s going to take everything we have to _survive_!”

Before she could continue, a shout came from the monitoring stations. “Admirals, we’ve lost contact with Luna Base!”

The grey-haired admiral took a few steps in that direction. “ _What?_ But we’re light years from the last reported sighting—“

Another technician. “London Headquarters reporting multiple hostile contacts, emergency request for assistance, priority one!”

And another. “Johannesburg with the same message!”

“I can’t raise Sydney!”

Shepard’s voice cut in above the increasingly panicked reports and murmuring voices, her own voice steady and clear as she raised it high enough to be heard. “They’re here. We are a target. We need to evacuate _now_.”

Nathan was facing Shepard, who had turned toward the techs at the back of the room, so he saw it before she did. Outside the window, in the clouds hovering over Vancouver, appeared a single monstrous black insectoid leg. It was followed by another, and another, until four claw-like legs were visible below the clouds, lowering toward the city below as if to grasp the nearest building. An immense, mollusc-shaped body followed, glistening with red and purple lights at junctions of vertebrae. As he watched, a single red portal irised open in the middle of the superstructure, glowing with heat.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shepard swore. She had obviously seen it too. “ _Move move move!”_ she yelled, drill sergeant tone slicing through the paralysis of those who had seen the same thing as Nathan. People started running for the exits, screaming in fear. Shepard leapt off the dais, crashing into Nathan and shoving him bodily off to the side. “ _Get down!”_

He caught a glimpse of red destruction bearing down on them, and then everything turned to fire. Shepard’s weight disappeared. The huge table went flying over his head to crash into the far wall. Wood exploded as the plasma beam hit, sending splinters shooting through the air and into vid-screens, walls and people. Glass shards rained down and metal bubbled and melted as he huddled in the corner, pressing his back into the dais and trying to protect his head. With a screeching roar a metal support pillar came down on the other side of the room, bringing half the ceiling with it.

When the roar had faded slightly and the beam was gone, he lifted his head and pushed himself to his feet, stumbling as he tried to take stock of what had happened. Reapers. Was that one of their ships out there? It looked vaguely like the pictures he had seen of the geth ship, Sovereign, years ago. His ears rang. Sunlight caught his eyes and almost blinded him as he looked out over the rubble where the Defence Chiefs’ table used to sit. The room was now open to the outside air, half collapsed, half creaking on an unstable floor.

He coughed as dust invaded his lungs. _Shepard._ Her weight had disappeared when they had hit the ground. What had happened to her? He scanned the room around him and hurried over to a body in an admiral’s uniform, flipping it over. He backed away when he saw the woman’s staring, sightless eyes. In a flash he realised just how lucky he had been to have had the protection of the dais at his back. He ran to another body, one of the techs. The man was impaled by a wooden splinter, straight through the throat. He swallowed. What if Shepard… _Don’t think about it._ He spun around, searching.

_Shepard!_

He spotted her halfway between the dais and one of the monitoring stations, sprawled flat on her back, not moving. “Shepard!” he yelled.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

Shepard launched herself off the dais and slammed into Nathan, using her whole body weight to _shove_ him off to the side, as far toward the edge of the room as possible while still staying in the shadow of the dais. If they were lucky, the meagre cover it provided would save them.

He hit the ground with a thump, his bulk cushioning her own awkward landing. Before she could move, a rough slab of concrete hit her side-on, sending her flying off Nathan in a tangle of limbs. She tucked and closed her arms over her head as best she could, but her elbow clipped something solid, spinning her, and suddenly her head was unprotected and—

She heard a sickening crack. Everything flashed white, then faded to black.

 

* * *

 

The first thing she became aware of was a slick wetness at the back of her head. Groaning, she forced her eyes open, then immediately squeezed them shut as roaring sound and blinding light rushed in. It felt as though something was pressing in on either side of her head, leaving her groggy and disoriented. She squinted and blinked through watering eyes, but all she could see was fire and debris. She could feel the heat radiating off the flames and smell the ash in the air.

She raised a hand to the matted hair at the back of her head and held it up in front of her eyes, blinking at the red smear of blood on her fingers. _Not good._ Suddenly a face appeared above her, looking down with a concern bordering on panic. _Nathan._ She felt a rush of relief, both at the fact that he was alive and that she remembered who he was, given her obvious head injury.

Nathan grabbed her arm and pulled her up to her feet, the movement sending shivers of pain through her head. She scrambled to get her uncooperative feet to hold her weight. She winced, blinking to try to clear her head, and he leaned down so he was directly in her line of vision. His mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying through the roaring in her ears. He shook his head and grasped her arm, turning her away so he could get a good look at whatever was causing all that blood to soak into her hair. She could feel it trickling down the back of her neck now as his fingers gently probed the area. Not a good sign.

He produced a tube of medi-gel from somewhere, squeezing its contents directly onto the back of her head and carefully working it in under her hair. Cool tingles immediately spread across her skull. She gasped with relief as the pain receded. Her vision cleared somewhat, and the rushing in her ears dulled to the sound of a loud breeze.

“Shepard?” Nathan was asking, again staring at her from inches away, brow lined with worry. “Can you hear me?”

She nodded hesitantly, expecting pain, but it didn’t materialise. “I can hear you.” Her mouth was dry.

Relief settled over his eyes for a moment, but was quickly gone. “Do you remember what happened?” he asked.

“I… yes. Shit. Yes.” She blinked, taking in the ruins of the situation room. Bodies were sprawled across the floor haphazardly. Half the room was little more than rubble. There were far fewer bodies than there had been staffers in the room before the Reapers attacked… She swallowed, realising the rest of the bodies would probably be crushed under the rubble.

She clenched her jaw and clamped down hard on the sick feeling in her stomach. They needed to get out of there _fast._ Alliance HQ was a top priority target and the Reapers would want to kill or capture anyone left alive. There was no time to waste on fear or grief.

“We need to get out of here,” Nathan echoed her thoughts, shouting over the rending sound of a Reaper klaxon coming from uncomfortably close outside.

Shepard tapped her ear. “Do you have comms?” she called in reply, wishing for her own in-ear comm. She hadn’t had one of those since she had been taken into custody.

He laid a finger over his ear then shook his head and pulled out his omnitool. The interface flashed to life, but Shepard could see a multitude of red error symbols and knew it wasn’t going to work. She looked around the room, searching for other options.

Spotting a bank of untouched terminals on the less-damaged side of the room, she hurried over, trying to test and shake out her limbs as she went. Nothing complained beyond some light aches and minor sprains. Thankfully it appeared her head-wound was her only real injury. It was nothing to sneer at, but it would only cause problems if it caused her to lose focus or start to feel nauseous at the wrong time. She could work with it.

Nathan followed her, closing down his omnitool. “I have text only, and I can only connect directly to another receiver. I can’t get any comm channels on it,” he told her.

She nodded grimly and pulled up a holographic keyboard on one of the terminals, tapping a few things into it experimentally. Thankfully it appeared to be accepting commands. She needed to get a comm channel up and running. The Alliance had emergency bands set up that would no doubt be in use; if she could broadcast a distress signal on that maybe she could find a ship that could pick them up and get them off Earth.

She _had_ to get to the _Normandy_. The Reapers were finally here. She had to _fight_ , and the best way she could do that would be from her ship.

She had no idea what they had done with it after she had turned herself in. For all she knew, it was half way across the other side of the galaxy under a new Captain. The idea gave her an unpleasant pang of dread. There was no way they would let a ship as advanced and useful as the _Normandy_ sit around in mothballs for months while its commander languished in prison; of _course_ they had reassigned it.

_What if it had been destroyed?_

What if they had assigned a new Captain who had gotten _her_ ship blown up?

She shook her head. Now she was just being silly. She got to work on the terminal, pushing all thoughts of another broken _Normandy_ out of her mind. It was probably fine. All she had to do was get off Earth and get in contact with whoever was in command up there. She thought they would probably assign her to the Normandy, but when it came right down to it, it didn’t matter. Hell, if they busted her down to Private she could live with it as long as they put her on the front lines. There was no way they could lock her away in a cell again when the Reapers were attacking.

The terminal squawked at her again and she slapped her hand against its housing in frustration. It wasn’t allowing her to log in. If she couldn’t get them off Earth because she had forgotten her goddamn password…

“For god’s sake, Shepard, move over,” Nathan muttered in equal parts amusement and irritation, elbowing her aside. She glared at him, annoyed at the humour in his tone, then watched as he calmly entered his own information and was immediately granted access. “Your access was revoked, remember?”

She glared daggers at his back. She had forgotten that. “Just get us a comm channel,” she ordered, ignoring the fact that she technically couldn’t order anyone to do anything.

Nathan didn’t seem to notice. His hands flew over the holographic keys, eliciting happy chirps from the terminal, until he ran into a decidedly prominent error. He muttered something to himself and ducked back behind the terminal housing. It took him a couple of minutes, but when he got up the error message was gone, replaced by an active comm interface. He grinned triumphantly at her.

_Huh._ Looked like Nathan Briggs was a bit of a tech. She wouldn’t have picked it.

He opened the channel and leaned forward so he was within range of the voice pickup. “All ships in the vicinity of Alliance HQ, this is Lieutenant Nathan Briggs. I have Commander Shepard with me. We require urgent extraction. Repeat, I have Commander Shepard with me and we require urgent extraction.”

Shepard grimaced at his use of her name. It _was_ good thinking on Nathan’s part to use it – it would work to get them bumped up to the top of the priority list for extraction, if such a thing existed – but that didn’t mean she had to like it. When you came right down to it she was just another soldier. Why should she get extracted ahead of anyone else?

To cover her discomfort she jogged over to one of the dead Alliance soldiers and claimed his pistol. As she straightened, she quickly laid a hand on his still shoulder, silently promising him that the Reapers would pay for what they had done to Earth. She cocked the pistol efficiently and tucked it into the waistband of her BDU trousers.

Nathan repeated his call for assistance, casting nervous glances at the edge of the room that was open to the sky. Shepard could see the fiery trails of drop ships landing, as well as a Reaper moving around out there. It was far too close, but focused elsewhere at the moment. She watched as its plasma beam rent through another building, sending it slowly crumbling to the ground in a cloud of dust and ash. She steeled her heart as the number of people who had just lost their lives flashed through her mind. Her blood boiled. She would find a way to wipe the Reapers from the face of the _galaxy_.

“ _Lieutenant Briggs, this is the_ Normandy _. You say you have Commander Shepard with you?”_

The voice was intertwined with static, but she would know it anywhere. She darted over and leaned toward the voice pickup. “Joker, is that you?”

“ _Shepard! Aren’t you supposed to be—Wait, forget it, where are you? I’m coming to get you.”_

“We’re at Alliance HQ. Can you pick up our location from Briggs’ omnitool?” she asked, glancing toward him. He nodded and brought up his omnitool interface, keying in a command.

_“Got it. It reads as being inside the building, you need to get out to somewhere I can get to. Ping me from the omnitool again when—shit, Commander, gotta go, see you soon!”_

Shepard felt a fierce rush of joy. The _Normandy_ was _here_! And with Joker at the helm! If they could just get somewhere he could bring the _Normandy_ , they would be off Earth and into the battle faster than she could ever have hoped for. She drew her pistol and cocked it, holding it at low ready and jogging for the open edge of the room. “Let’s go, Briggs,” she called to him.

“On your six, Commander,” he replied.

That brought her to a halt. She looked back at him, surprised. Aside from the distress call he had just made, Nathan hadn’t used her rank at all since they had first met. The fact that he was using it now meant that he intended to honour it. He had effectively just told her that he would follow her lead.

And that meant… he trusted her. She knew they had started to get along very well – in fact, she would consider him a friend – but she hadn’t realised that he trusted her as much as she had instinctively come to trust him. He was trusting her with his _life_ by putting himself under her command _._ She felt… honoured.

He gestured impatiently at the open sky outside, sheepish. “Don’t give me that look. Out of the two of us, you’re the only one who seems to have some idea what the hell these _Reaper_ things are, so you have the best chance of saving our asses. Get to it, Shepard.” His eyes twinkled with amusement.

She tossed him an exasperated look, fighting a grin as something fluttered low in her stomach. There was something about the way he looked at her, the way he lazily poked good-natured fun at her that she just couldn’t get enough of.

She cleared her throat. “Shut it, _Lieutenant,”_ she fired back. “Just keep up.” She stepped out onto the wide ledge on the side of the building.

 

* * *

 

Nathan let himself grin as she turned away and climbed out onto the ledge. If there was one thing he had really grown to enjoy doing over the past few weeks, it was teasing Shepard. The looks she gave him were priceless. Vancouver was already largely in ruins and their chances of making it out of there weren’t particularly good, but _this_ , the banter he had become used to between them, was _normal_. If he kept it up, it was something that could keep him grounded.

He followed her as she worked her way along the wide concrete surface, keeping his pistol out and ready. His boots crunched on broken glass as he walked. The ledge wasn’t particularly narrow but he was well aware of the long fall to the ground twenty stories below. He didn’t look down or out at the burning city, keeping his eyes firmly set on Shepard’s back.

She didn’t appear to be bothered by the height. She glanced over the edge numerous times, seemingly keeping an eye out for something. “What are you looking for?” he called out to her.

“Husks,” she replied. “Blue and black humanoids with cybernetic enhancements. They like to climb.”

_Great._ He shuddered and braved a look over the edge himself. _Holy shit!_ Quickly he pulled back. Yep, they were up just as high as he thought they were. “So… I don’t know if this is the right time to mention this but I’m not the best with heights,” he shouted.

Shepard tossed him an amused glance. “Just cover the walls above us, then, and keep an eye on our six,” she told him, taking another look over the edge as she walked. This time she leaned a little closer and squinted down at the ground below. “Dammit. We’re going to have company in a few minutes,” she warned, all mirth gone from her tone.

Nathan swore, spinning around and scanning the direction they had come from for an alternative route down. There was nothing, though; the way past the blown out windows of the situation room was blocked in the other direction. “No way back,” he said.

Shepard had stopped next to one of the immense concrete support pillars that led straight up the side of the building. It had been scored along the entire outward-facing length, leaving a naked rocky surface exposed to the wind. Nathan’s heart sank. “Oh, Christ,” he murmured. “No way.”

Somehow she heard him over the wind and screams and shrieking metal. “You can do it,” she said with conviction. “We can’t go down, there are too many husks for us to take with pistols. I’ll go first. Follow me up. Be careful, but we need to move quickly.” Without further ado she tucked her pistol into her waistband and began to climb.

Mouthing a string of creative swear words, he waited for her to get a few metres up then secured his own pistol against the magnetic plate in his belt and followed.

It was a disconcerting and dangerous climb. He carefully checked each handhold as he moved, fully aware that just because they could hold Shepard did not mean they could hold his greater weight. Every time the building shook with the reverberation of the destruction the Reapers were meting out across the city his heart leapt into his throat. His muscles tensed and he clung to the pillar, hoping it would hold.

They were almost shaken loose twice, and once Nathan had frozen in sheer terror, certain it was all over, as a Reaper angled its glowing weapons port in their direction. The plasma beam had impacted a few hundred metres back in the direction they had come from, however, so he had forced a deep breath and continued to climb.

By the time they reached the top of the building, his muscles were tightly tensed and sore. He was glad to stop and rest his weight on his legs, bracing against the wind, when Shepard signalled the halt. She inched up to the top of the pillar, which was flush with the roof. She raised her head up just high enough to see over the top. He kept a sharp eye on her, ready to move quickly if she gave the order. She watched for a few seconds, then slowly lowered her head and looked around. She didn’t move to climb up.

She looked down at him, tufts of loose hair blowing around her face, and raised a finger to her lips in the universal signal of _keep the fuck quiet._ He nodded grimly. She pointed to him, then her eyes, then indicated the floor one level below the roof, which remained mostly in one piece. The windows had blown out, but there was a wide, intact balcony jutting out over the length of the building. It appeared undamaged. He nodded in understanding and slowly reversed his climb until he hung next to the balcony wall. He craned his head as best he could to try and see through into the darkened offices beyond, but couldn’t quite get the angle right from his current position.

Carefully he edged over onto the balcony wall and dropped to the floor in a crouch, pistol quickly up and ready, grateful to feel solid horizontal concrete beneath his boots once more. He crept up to the now-empty window ledge and looked over.

Nothing. An empty office.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he signalled the all-clear to Shepard, who dropped nimbly down beside him.

“Roof’s a no-go?” he asked quietly.

She nodded, grim. “Dropship. Too many hostiles.” She paused, thinking.

Nervous, Nathan peeked over the balcony railing, swallowing the vertigo as he looked down. “Those husks aren’t far off,” he warned. “What if we cut through the office…” As soon as he said it, he changed his mind. It wouldn’t work.

Shepard shook her head. “No, they’ll be coming down through there, searching for survivors. They can smell us. We can’t let them get too close. If they work out I’m here, they’ll send everything they have against us.”

He glanced at her in surprise. “They would go after you in particular?”

She nodded grimly. “Their leader doesn’t like me much.”

_Damn_. The leader of an immensely powerful invading race held a grudge against a single Alliance Lieutenant Commander? What had she done to deserve that?

“Ping the _Normandy_ , quickly,” she ordered. “They’ll have to pick us up from here.”

Nathan stared at her. “What?”

“Do it now, Lieutenant. Ask questions later,” she snapped.

He glowered at her tone, but did as ordered and received a text reply shortly after. _‘Inbound. Kaidan aboard.’_

He angled the screen so Shepard could see it. “Perfect,” she muttered, leaning in to type a response. Her hair smelled of dust and ash.

‘ _Zone hot. Pickup from balcony. Kaidan to assist.’_

_‘Acknowledged. ETA four minutes.’_

“Right,” she said, satisfied. “We hold here for four minutes.”

“I can ask questions now?”

She ignored his sarcasm. “When we’ve got some cover, sure.” She cast around for cover but the balcony was almost completely bare. There was another support pillar, this one intact, a dozen metres away. “You take high, I’ll take low,” she instructed, ducking behind the pillar and crouching down.

He followed her, drawing his pistol and positioning himself behind and above her line of fire. “First question. What the hell are you planning, Shepard? This balcony is _not_ big enough for the _Normandy_ to land.”

She glanced up at him with a slow grin. “It won’t have to. Joker’s at the helm.”

He blinked. “So… he’s going to back the ship up and we’re just going to _jump_?” he demanded.

She shrugged. “I’ve done it before. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. Kaidan’s a biotic, he’ll catch us.”

Nathan stared at her. _It’ll be fine?_ “It’ll be fine? We’ll just take a running leap and hope we make it far enough that your biotic friend will be able to catch us? We’re going to jump off a _building_?”

She looked up again to reply, eyes shining with laughter, but just then Nathan spotted a blue and black humanoid figure beginning to pull itself over the side of the balcony they had come from. Its black skin seemed to glisten wetly, cybernetics straining to keep pieces of flesh fused together. “Heads up,” he barked, raising his pistol. He waited until he had a clear shot, then fired, hitting it in the shoulder.

“Aim for the torso,” Shepard advised, all business once more.

He did so, and the thing jerked as its legs suddenly stopped functioning and collapsed to the ground with a wet smack. It lay there unmoving. He shuddered. “What _are_ these things? I’ve never heard of a race of husks, or an alien species that looks like this.”

“They were made from humans,” Shepard told him grimly. Another husk crawled onto the balcony and she took it out with a single shot.

He opened his mouth to reply but couldn’t find the words. _Made from humans…_ He felt sick to his stomach.

Husks began appearing more rapidly, coming over the balcony in pairs. Nathan fired as methodically and accurately as he could, mindful of the fact that he only carried another three thermal clips and Shepard had none. Shepard was freakishly accurate. She ejected her clip long after he had moved onto his second and he was pretty sure every one of her shots had felled a husk.

He passed her a new one and she loaded quickly, then smoothly took out another husk all in the one motion. “Ping them again,” she ordered, upping her rate of fire so he could stop.

He raised his omnitool and sent out another ping, checking the four-minute timer he had set. “Two minutes,” he informed her.

“Clips?” she asked curtly without taking her eyes off the approaching husks. They were starting to get a foothold on the balcony; two were now on their feet while another two climbed the rail.

He had just reloaded again. “On my last one,” he replied. He aimed and fired, and a husk collapsed when one of its calves exploded. To his horror it started crawling toward them, moaning.

“Hurry up, Joker,” Shepard muttered as she fired. The husk flopped and went still.

Nathan’s pistol overheated after a few more shots. He slapped it back onto the magnetic point on his belt. “What are they like up close?” he asked, priming his omniblade.

“One is easy, but they swarm,” Shepard explained. She fired one last time then tucked her pistol into her waistband. “Stay together and stay in the open.”

He nodded and moved out of cover, Shepard right beside him. The husks spotted them immediately, letting out unearthly moans as they loped forward. Nathan side-stepped one of them and impaled it on his omniblade, shoving it back into another. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shepard, who was fighting bare-handed, land a punch so hard the husk’s head spun to the side and its neck cracked. _Damn._

Two husks rushed him. He managed to get his omniblade up, slicing it into one husk’s chest, but he couldn’t pull it free before the other one was on him too. It ran at him mindlessly, arms outstretched, and he threw an awkward punch with his off-hand. His fist connected with a wet smack, sinking into the malleable skin. The husk stumbled but his punch had been relatively weak; it was back up and on him again quickly. He pushed at it with his free arm while trying to get his omniblade free from the other husk’s chest. It moaned, straining against his arm. The give in its flesh made it all the more difficult to keep away from him.

Finally he managed to shove the dead husk off his omniblade. It slid to the ground, leaving his arm soaked in black blood. He swung the blade across his body and speared the living husk in the side of the head. It jerked and went still. He let it fall.

Shepard was swearing, surrounded by three of the things. She had one by the arm; as he watched, she swung it awkwardly into another, sending both stumbling away. She continued to spin, using her momentum to backhand the remaining one across the cheek, snapping its neck. The first two husks had risen and were reaching for her; she swung her elbow at one, scoring a glancing blow and knocking it to the side, but the other grabbed her. Nathan reached out to pull it off but she was quicker. She used its weight to fall back and clumsily heave it back over her head, lifting it so its head was caught in the crook of her shoulder while its body continued to cartwheel over her head. Nathan winced as its neck bent in an unnaturally sharp angle and it went limp.

“Damn, Shepard, you sure know some creative ways to break necks,” he commented wryly, stabbing the remaining husk through its torso with his omniblade. It was the last one for the moment. No more were climbing over the balcony rail. They had a momentary reprieve.

She shook her head as she clambered to her feet. “I’m a bit rusty,” she grumbled. Nathan blinked. It sure hadn’t looked that way to him.

She was covered in thick black blood from the side of her face, down her neck, and all of one shoulder. Her face was smudged with streaks of ash and blood – red this time – and her BDUs were barely recognisable.

She had never looked more beautiful.

Her eyes lit up and she nodded at something over his shoulder, smiling. “Our ride is here,” she said.

Nathan turned, and felt his heart lift into his throat, spine tingling as the gleaming white hull of the _Normandy_ swung into view, gliding smoothly through a gap between two buildings. It swung around and slowed, engines emitting a high-pitched whine as its pilot fought the wind and its mass effect field met the walls of the Alliance HQ building. He had never seen the _Normandy_ up close before, but the pictures and news segments hadn’t done it justice. It was the most beautiful ship he had ever seen.

“Come on.” Shepard grabbed his wrist and jogged down to the farthest end of the balcony from the husks. “We’ll have to jump together.”

Even as she said it, another blue-black head appeared. She was right; they wouldn’t have time to jump one by one. Shepard had also been right about not letting them get close. Nathan spotted more husks descending from the roof. They must have recognised her and somehow reported back to whoever was leading them, and now they were starting to swarm.

The hull of the _Normandy_ was gliding closer, then swinging around, thrusters burning above and to either side of them. The pilot gradually inched the ship lower, keeping it square. If those thrusters swung over towards them, they’d be piles of ash before they knew what hit them. As he watched, dividing his attention between the approaching ship and the husks, he saw the cargo ramp swing down to reveal the figure of a man attached to the ship with a safety line. _Kaidan._

The husks were beginning to find their feet. As he watched, one started loping toward them. The _Normandy_ was still a good twenty metres out, drifting closer. They had to go!

Shepard still had an iron grip on his wrist, however. She held him back. “Wait,” she warned.

The husk was halfway to them now, and others were starting to follow. “Shepard…”

Kaidan flared blue, and the husk suddenly floated up off the ground, forward momentum gone.

Kaidan flared again, and Shepard yanked on his arm. “Go!” she shouted.

Together they sprinted for the balcony railing. Nathan twisted his hand around and gripped Shepard’s forearm as he began to pull ahead. With one stride he leapt up onto the railing, pulling her with him, and _jumped._

_Ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit…_

His stomach fell away as he launched into empty air, one hand clamped around Shepard’s forearm, free arm reaching for the ship, legs moving as if to propel himself across the gap. There was a terrifying moment where he felt himself start to drop, and then they were surrounded by a field of blue biotic energy and _lifted_ up onto the solid waiting ramp.

Kaidan grabbed them and hauled them into the cargo hold proper, momentum sending them both crashing onto the deck. Kaidan quickly raised a hand to his ear. “Joker, they’re in, let’s go!”

Nathan lay back against the deck for a moment, breathing heavily and still holding tightly to Shepard as if she might fall if he let go. His heart hammered in his chest. He closed his eyes, willing the vertigo to go away.

Shepard laid her other hand over his, then gently pried his fingers loose, but she didn’t move away. Instead, she slipped her small hand into his and held tight. The strength in her fingers grounded him, reminded him that they were okay. They weren’t falling to their deaths just yet. They were safely on board the _Normandy_.

He opened his eyes and sat up, casting her a rueful smile. At the questioning look in her eyes, he nodded and squeezed her hand. “I’m okay.” She gave him a small smile, holding tight to his hand, searching his eyes as if to make sure he meant it.

Finally, after holding his hand for what seemed like far longer than necessary, she let go and got to her feet. As the cargo bay ramp began to close Nathan’s eyes were drawn to the building they had just jumped from, to the roof in particular. Now he understood why they hadn’t been able to go that way.

It was covered in… monsters. Brown, glistening, bulbous bodies connected to spindly humanoid legs. Tall, armoured constructs with sickeningly turian-like fringes. More husks.

The tall constructs were herding husks and the other bulbous things down into the building. As he watched, they caught sight of the _Normandy_ and some of the larger monsters started firing in their direction.

They were too far away, though. The cargo ramp closed with a thump as the _Normandy_ shot up into the sky.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I’m sticking to canon (mostly) for a couple of chapters but then things will start to diverge a bit more. Whenever I have to use a canon scene though, I deliberately don’t look at the script, so they usually play out a bit differently.

**Chapter Eight**

Shepard watched as the ramp finally closed, letting out a breath in relief. They had cut it _very_ close getting off that platform, closer than she would have liked. The husks would probably have started to overwhelm them if they had stayed there for much longer.

They were very lucky the _Normandy_ had been in-system, and even luckier that Kaidan had happened to be on board. She slipped an arm around his shoulders in a friendly half-hug, then let him go. “Thanks for the save, Kaidan,” she said.

“Any time, Shepard,” he replied with an affectionate smile.

She glanced at Nathan, slumped against a nearby crate, and wondered how he was handling this. He had seen the massing Reaper forces as they left, she knew. She hadn’t told him more about them on the ground after she had seen them herself because she hadn’t wanted to overwhelm him right when they were running for their lives. Maybe he could have handled it; she didn’t know. They had spent a lot of time together while she was locked up, but she didn’t know him as a soldier yet. She knew nothing about his strengths and weaknesses in combat.

Nathan saw her watching him and visibly gathered himself together. He stood up and said, “I’m good, Commander.”

She nodded. She hoped he wasn’t just saying what he thought she wanted to hear. She had grown to like him a lot over the past five months and did want to make sure he was okay, but at the same time she needed a fully functioning soldier right now and she couldn’t spare the time to coddle him. Neither of them could afford for him to fall apart.

She headed up into the ship at a jog, taking in the changes the Alliance had made as she went and mentally setting them aside for later. As she passed the armour and weapons lockers she grabbed a rag and quickly did her best to wipe some of the drying blood off her skin, then headed straight for the bridge. Kaidan and Nathan followed behind as she rode the elevator to the CIC and made her way past the galaxy map to the cockpit. The door separating it from the rest of the ship was new, but the cockpit itself was just as she remembered it.

Joker sat in the low-slung pilot’s chair, fingers dancing across the holographic control surfaces of the _Normandy’s_ piloting interface. Not wanting to distract him, she simply reached out and got a grip on the back of the pilot’s chair, relishing the feel of the familiar leather beneath her fingers. Whenever they were about to try something risky with the _Normandy_ , this was where she had always stood, watching over her irreverent genius pilot. Despite the circumstances, it was good to be back.

The sky whipped past outside the viewports as the _Normandy_ surged toward open space, breaking out of the atmosphere. Earth fell away quickly, replaced by the blackness of space and the panorama of a pitched space battle.

It was not a fair fight.

Dozens, _hundreds_ of Reaper vessels swarmed through high and low orbit, mercilessly falling on Earth’s defenders, ripping the ships apart with deadly crimson plasma beams. Explosions littered the vista. Formations of cruisers and carriers with fighter support were picked off just as easily as lone frigates. Reaper drop ships hurtled toward the Earth below, trailing fire like meteors.

Shepard felt her fingers clench on the back of Joker’s chair as she watched the dreadnought _Amadeus,_ flagship of the Fourth Fleet, break into pieces as it succumbed to Reaper fire. Thousands of people crewed that ship. Thousands of people were dying as Joker threaded the _Normandy_ through the wreckage. Thousands of people vaporised, hundreds vented into cold space.

“Do we stay and help, Commander?” Joker asked, voice soft.

He knew the answer to that. Eyes on the stricken dreadnought as it broke apart, she forced herself to take a deep breath and told herself that she only _imagined_ she couldn’t breathe. “No,” she replied. “Get us out of here, but stay in-system. I need to contact Command.”

Command. _Shit_. Mentally she slapped her forehead in realisation. She had to sort that out before she went about issuing more orders.

Straightening, she turned to Kaidan, who along with Nathan had followed her into the cockpit. She had noticed the new rank pins attached to his collar back at Alliance HQ but hadn’t had time to say anything. She saluted. “Major Alenko.” Even had she still retained her rank, his Major outranked her Lieutenant Commander. He was the ranking officer aboard the ship. “Where do you need me?”

Kaidan looked positively alarmed at that. “Shepard, you’re joking, right? Hell, things are crazy enough out there, I don’t need you saluting me too. The _Normandy_ is _your_ ship. I don’t care what rank you do or don’t have,” he protested.

She felt a wave of relief. If Kaidan had pressed the issue, she would have deferred to his rank and followed his orders but she wouldn’t have liked it one bit. The _Normandy was_ her ship. She nodded curtly. “Joker?” she asked.

The pilot snorted. “As if you even have to ask,” he replied.

She couldn’t help a small smile. _My ship, my crew._ She had them back. She was out. She was free. She was home. “All right. How long until we can send a message through to Command? Do you know who’s in charge out there?” she asked Joker, crouching down beside his seat.

“The comm chatter has all been pointing to Admiral Hackett. He escaped Arcturus with the Fifth and Third Fleets but the Second is dust. No idea where he is now,” Joker told her. “Give me another… ten minutes and I’ll have us safely tucked away somewhere quiet. Sam can try and contact him for you. All the comm buoys in the system are down but if anyone can do it, she can.”

“Sam?” Shepard asked.

“Specialist Samantha Traynor,” Joker explained. He glanced up at her. “When we left the docks we didn’t have many crew members on board. Mainly techs. She’s a tech. But EDI says she’s good.”

“Jeff is correct, Shepard,” came the pleasant tones of EDI’s voice over the ship-wide comm. “Specialist Traynor has been invaluable in testing a number of the _Normandy’s_ systems.”

Shepard nodded. “Thanks EDI, Joker. I’ll go see her now. Kaidan, can you find Lieutenant Briggs somewhere to sleep?”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Kaidan acknowledged, and headed off into the ship with Nathan following. Before he left, Nathan met her eyes and she gave him a quick smile, trying to show him that she empathised with what he must be feeling. Being thrown headfirst into a battle he knew nothing about, fighting for his life, then ending up on a completely unfamiliar ship had to be hard to deal with if you weren’t accustomed to having to deal with the unexpected.

She trailed behind them, watching Nathan’s back and eying the new crew stations as she went. She finally took a good look at the upgraded CIC. Most things were only subtly different from the Cerberus fitout, but there were a couple of big changes that she noticed. For one, the old armoury, where Jacob used to work, was gone. For another, every crew member she could see wore an Alliance uniform. Inwardly she smiled proudly. For her, even if things had changed a little, it was like coming home.

She descended the steps into the CIC and made her way along beside the central display that housed the galaxy map. As she walked, each crew member snapped a salute in her direction, awaiting a nod before returning to work. She saw none of the hidden animosity she had seen at Alliance HQ in their eyes. No one here cared that she currently held no official rank, and they seemed to be giving her the benefit of the doubt when it came to the Aratoht incident. She felt a weight lift off her chest.

Standing at Yeoman Kelly Chambers’ old station was a slight, dark-skinned woman with shoulder-length black hair. She came to attention as Shepard approached, saluting smartly. “Commander Shepard! I—it’s an honour, Commander!” she stammered, looking strikingly similar to a deer in headlights, wide eyes and all.

Shepard returned her salute. “At ease. Specialist Traynor, I assume?”

“Yes, ma’am! Joker told me you’re wanting to speak to Admiral Hackett, ma’am. If you like, I can show you the new comms room. The _Normandy_ was being refitted to act as Admiral Anderson’s flagship, you know, so we have all sorts of helpful things installed. Like a Quantum Entanglement Communicator in the comms room! And we have a fully equipped war room as well, it’s got—“

Shepard held up a hand with an amused smile. She liked this Traynor already. “Why don’t you show me, Specialist?” she suggested.

“I—oh! Of course! I mean, aye aye, ma’am! I’m sorry, I’m new to this whole active duty thing.” Traynor gestured toward the door that had once led to Mordin Solus’ lab with an apologetic smile. “If you’ll follow me?”

Shepard followed Traynor through a small room that appeared to be dedicated to the sole purpose of conducting physical security checks and into the war room, which did in fact look to be very well equipped. The Specialist continued with her cheerful stream of chatter as they rounded the war room and entered the small enclosed comm room. She set to work at one of the stations. “I’ll just see if I can get that link to Admiral Hackett set up for you, ma’am, if Joker has found us a place to hide… ooh yes, he has! He’s good, isn’t he? There we go! Just hit that button when you’re ready.”

Shepard nodded. “Thank you, Specialist,” she said in dismissal.

“You’re most welcome, Commander!” Traynor replied, standing at ease and waiting expectantly.

“It might be best if I spoke to the Admiral in private,” Shepard added gently when she didn’t move.

Traynor’s eyes widened. “Oh! I’m _sorry,_ ma’am. Gosh, I’m an idiot. I’ll leave you to it then.” She saluted quickly and left in a hurry, a blush creeping up her face.

Shepard shook her head. As much as she liked the specialist, her lack of discipline reminded her that the _Normandy_ would need to pick up a proper crew at some point – with the kind of manoeuvres they would no doubt be pulling she would need the best. She hit the button Traynor had indicated and took a step back.

A holographic image of Admiral Hackett coalesced behind the terminal, fuzzy and distorted at its edges. “ _Shepard! You got off Earth, then. I’m glad,”_ he said in greeting, metallic distortion playing through his voice.

She saluted. “Admiral. Barely. It’s… hell down there, sir.”

He eyed her bloody uniform. _“So I see.”_ He paused. _“Anderson didn’t make it off.”_ Her breath caught in her throat, but Hackett continued. _“He’s holed up dirtside with a bunch of survivors. He thinks he can get a resistance movement up and running, fight dirty, use guerrilla tactics. I don’t know how much good it’ll do, but it’s better than nothing.”_

She let her breath go in relief. “I’m glad he’s okay,” she replied. “Admiral, I’m on board the _Normandy_ and I have a small ground team with me. I need orders.”

The Admiral barked a laugh. _“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day, Shepard. You’ll also need to be reinstated. I’ll see about sending that through. Along with a full pardon. Feel free to tell people exactly_ why _you destroyed that mass relay, by the way. The evidence that the Reapers exist is irrefutable now. In fact, I’ll get PR on it, if there’s anything left of them.”_

“PR, sir?” she repeated dubiously.

“ _Of course. The Alliance needs its greatest hero back in action, Shepard. Especially now.”_

Shepard wrinkled her nose, wincing. “This again?” She remembered what it had been like in the six months after defeating Saren. She couldn’t go anywhere public without people recognising her and coming up to her for one reason or another. And the ceremonies. God. The dress uniform. The parties. The politicians. She shuddered. She was glad to be reinstated and pardoned but she could do without having to be the Great Commander Shepard, War Hero and galactic celebrity again.

He sighed, and his tone changed. _“Every little bit will help. Shepard, we’re in trouble.”_

“How much trouble, sir? What condition are the fleets in?” Shepard asked with a sinking feeling.

_“We’re sitting at about half-strength. Better than it could be, but still dire. We’re going to need all the help we can get in this war.”_

“Damn,” she breathed. She felt a momentary flash of anger. If they had only listened to her sooner, they wouldn’t be so far on the back foot.

_“Arcturus has been blown out of the sky,”_ he told her. She grimaced. _“We lost all the politicians and diplomats in residence at the time, which is close to all we had. A lot of our command structure was obliterated as well, and what little we have left I need on deck. I need someone to convince as many races as possible to help us fight the Reapers. You’re a hero, Shepard, they’ll listen to you.”_

Shepard reached forward to grip the edge of the comm station. “But I’m not a diplomat, sir,” she protested. “I’m a soldier. Give me a battle group, or even just a full ground team, and let me _fight_!”

The Admiral shook his head. _“No, Shepard. You’re the best – probably the only – person left who can do this. If we don’t get everyone united we’ll be overrun. But I do need you to do one other thing first, before you head to the Citadel. Dr Liara T’Soni is on Mars, heading up a research team there, and she thinks she might have found something that’ll help us win this war.”_

Shepard pushed down her frustration. “What has she found?”

_“I don’t know. Something big. We haven’t been able to raise her since the Reapers attacked. We need her data, Shepard, whatever it is. You need to get to Mars now.”_

“Aye aye, sir,” she replied.

_“Keep me updated. Hackett out.”_

She slapped the side of the comm station with an open palm as her frustration spilled over. Now that she was out of sight of the crew, out of sight of Hackett, she could allow herself the luxury of getting angry, even if just for a moment.

He was going to force her to be a _diplomat_? She knew her own strengths and although she was a capable leader of a small team, which required a touch of diplomacy sometimes, she was no negotiator. She certainly didn’t see herself as capable of convincing entire species to join together in a war. Sure, she could be the Great Commander Shepard if the brass really thought it would help, but leaders of governments didn’t even _like_ her very much, let alone go in for the whole hero thing. The Council was a case in point. Even though she had saved their asses by calling in the human fleet against Sovereign three years ago, they had forgotten all about that once they learned her resurrection had been brought about by Cerberus. They had treated her with disdain at best ever since.

She spun around and headed back toward the CIC. As she walked, she tilted her head to the ceiling, confident her voice would be picked up by the ship’s internal comm system. “Joker, get us moving toward Mars,” she ordered.

“ _Yes, ma’am,”_ came the disembodied reply.

 

* * *

 

Nathan trailed Kaidan through the CIC, unable to help feeling a little intimidated. He didn’t like the feeling. He was already trying to grasp the idea that Earth had just been invaded by giant starships with horrific mutations of humans as ground troops, and now he had to cope with the fact that he had just fought his way out of there with _Commander fucking Shepard_ and was standing on the _Normandy,_ which was probably the most famous ship in the galaxy next to the _Destiny Ascension_. He felt as though his own little world of defending the galaxy from pirates and slavers in the Terminus systems had suddenly been revealed for the small-time, petty distraction it really was.

_God, Earth. Home._

He swallowed at the thought of his world burning. Overrun with a force he didn’t understand, a force he had never even heard of before today. Sure, he had always wanted to leave the place and had never really held much attachment to it but that did _not_ mean he wanted _this._

He felt totally and completely out of place on the _Normandy_. As they waited for the elevator he caught a glimpse of Shepard, uniform stained with ash, dirt and blood, striding through the CIC and was struck by how fiercely beautiful she looked. She was in her element in the battlefield. She _belonged_ in command, right where she was, aboard her ship. Even Major Alenko, who easily out-ranked her, knew it and deferred to her without a second thought.

Nathan had started to get comfortable in their roles of guard and prisoner, had begun to like her… a lot. He was definitely attracted to her. But… he had to grudgingly admit that her diminished status had made that a lot easier. When she was just another soldier stuck in the same place he was, he could relate to her.

Now, she was Commander Shepard again. The war hero, Saviour of the Citadel. Mass-murderer. She had said she had a reason for doing what she did to the Alpha Relay, and he believed her even if she couldn’t tell him what it was, but that didn’t change the fact that she was _capable_ of making a decision like that. Nor that it had been necessary for her, in particular, to do so.

He didn’t quite know how to handle this new reality, being at the absolute crux of events that were impacting the whole galaxy. He was nervous, and jittery with pent-up adrenaline after the escape from Earth.

Kaidan led him down to the crew deck and showed him the crew quarters, the mess and the med bay, then back into the elevator and all the way down to the cargo hold.

“… under-utilised in the Cerberus version of the SR-2 so the cargo bay was refitted to house a number of useful areas,” Kaidan was explaining. “I know you probably didn’t get a chance to have a good look when you came on board so I’ll show you round. We’ve got the armoury here, and that’s a weapons modding station. Lockers over there hold armour, weapons are over here. We’ll have to get you set up with some of the spares until we have a chance to stop somewhere with an Alliance requisitions office.” Kaidan made his way over to what looked like a small gym, where a man dressed in t-shirt and fatigues was dancing around a mat shadow-punching. “Vega!”

The soldier stopped and shook himself out. “Major, what’s going on?” he demanded.

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask the Commander. Lieutenant James Vega, this is Lieutenant Nathan Briggs. We picked him up along with Shepard.”

Nathan extended a hand and Vega gripped it and shook. “Welcome aboard, _amigo_. You a marine?”

“Yeah, man,” Nathan replied. “You too?”

“Yeah. I was assigned as security while the _Normandy_ was being refurbished,” James told him. “I was on board when the Reapers hit. _Pendejos.”_

“I’m… I _was_ Shepard’s personal guard back on Earth. We were in the situation room when it got torn up by a Reaper.”

“Damn, lucky you made it out.” Vega whistled. Nathan nodded, grimacing.

“Vega, Briggs is going to need some armour and weapons. What have we got?” Kaidan asked.

It took a few minutes but Nathan soon found himself kitted out with some of the spare heavy armour and a base model sniper rifle, assault rifle and a heavy pistol for a sidearm. Some of the pieces of armour were a bit small but they were able to stretch the plating out a bit and it did the job.

Vega eyed him critically. “Yeah, it’ll work for now. Don’t know when we’ll be able to get some in your size.”

“You expecting I’ll need it soon?” Nathan asked.

“Don’t know. Gotta be ready though. We’ve gotta be going back to Earth,” Vega said with conviction.

Nathan glanced at Kaidan. They had both been on the flight deck when Shepard had ordered Joker to pull out of orbit. “Uh, I don’t know—“ he began, but before he could finish what he was going to say, the elevator opened and Commander Shepard strode out. Nathan snapped to attention, noticing that Vega and Kaidan did the same.

“At ease,” Shepard waved them down. “Suit up. Full vacuum seals. We’ll be at Mars in fifteen. We’re retrieving data and extracting a scientist.” Nathan heard Vega make a small surprised sound, but Shepard didn’t notice. She looked at Kaidan. “It’s Liara.”

“Liara? What’s she doing on Mars?” Kaidan asked. Nathan assumed ‘Liara’ was a mutual acquaintance of theirs.

“She’s been researching the Prothean archives. Hackett thinks she’s found something that could help us against the Reapers,” Shepard explained.

“Wait, Commander, you mean we’re not going back to Earth?” Vega interjected, voice rising in anger.

She turned sympathetic eyes on him. “No, we’re not. We can’t. There’s—“

“But we can’t just leave them!” he insisted. “They’re killing people!”

“I know—“

“ _Millions_ of people! They’re turning them into those… those things! My family is down there… I need to be—“

“ _Enough_!” Shepard’s voice was a whip-crack through Vega’s tirade. “Don’t you think I would rather be down there too? We’ve got a job to do, Lieutenant!”

Nathan carefully kept his face blank, eyes forward. He would have preferred to be heading back down to Earth too but he had never heard her yell like that before and wasn’t about to say so now.

She held eye contact with the big marine for a few more beats, then turned away, grabbing a pistol from the weapons bench, restlessly cocking it, then replacing it before speaking. “Lieutenant Briggs. What are your combat specialties?” she asked, all business.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to be the focus of her attention right at the moment. “Weaponry, ma’am, with a bit of tech thrown in. I’m best with a heavy pistol or an assault rifle but I can handle a sniper rifle if I have to. My tech isn’t that great, but I can overload and I’m a decent hacker,” he told her.

She nodded, and turned her attention to Vega. “And you, Lieutenant…?” she trailed off, prompting him for a name.

“Vega, ma’am,” he told her grudgingly. “James Vega. I’m a soldier too. Put me out front and give me the heavy weapons. I’ve got extra shield strength, proficient with shotguns and assault rifles. I like to get up close and shoot ‘em right in the face.”

“Right. Get suited up, all of you.” She put actions to words, heading over to the armour locker. Kaidan and Vega followed suit, but Nathan was already kitted out and ready. Instead he headed over to the modding station, pulled out his assault rifle and flicked the lever to extend it into shape. It clicked into place with a whir and he laid it on the table, then started searching through the available mods. He figured he had at least ten minutes, so he could put it to good use making his weapons as deadly as possible.

He had always had a thing for modding. There was just something about being able to tweak the performance of a weapon beyond what it was supposed to be capable of doing that he found satisfying, and relaxing. God, did he need to relax. His nerves were going haywire at the thought of deploying on a ground team with Shepard. He had known her for six months now but always as ‘Shepard’, never as the Commander. He had heard the stories, knew she was supposed to be very, very good, but there was a difference between knowing about something and actually being a part of it. He quickly removed the barrel casing and set to work, fingers moving with a sure grace.

It didn’t take him long – he had done this particular modification more than a few times. It would give him a touch more stability when aiming. As he was snapping the casing back into place and cocking the rifle experimentally, Joker’s voice came over the comm with a five minute warning. He hit the catch to snap the weapon back into its compact form and slid it back into place over his shoulder.

“Vega, Briggs, either of you have experience piloting a Kodiak?” Shepard asked. She was pulling the last strap of her gauntlets into place, giving it a good yank then deftly snapping the catches into place with expert fingers. She seemed to have had trouble locating armour that fit her, just as he had, no doubt because she was a fair bit smaller than the average marine. She had found medium arm, leg and shoulder plating, but the rest appeared to be heavy armour. It was all tightly strapped into place, but even so some of the various pieces were almost scraping against one another. It wasn’t all one colour, either. The breastplate was bright Alliance blue, as were the leg plates, but boots, gauntlets, helmet and shoulder armour were all red.

He wanted to laugh at how ridiculous it looked, but he knew that was the nerves talking. He decided now would probably not be the best time to start making fun of his commanding officer. She was clearly not in a joking mood. Instead he replied, “I do, ma’am.”

“Good. You’re our pilot. Into the shuttle, everyone.”

Taking a deep breath, he gripped his helmet tightly and headed for the shuttle.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks to VorchaGirl for her beta work. All remaining errors are mine.

**Chapter Nine**

Shepard slipped her helmet on and snapped it into place on her collar guard as the shuttle came in to land. She spared a moment to double-check her helmet seals again, just in case. She had already checked them over before selecting this particular helmet from the few in the armoury locker, but she told herself there was no harm in checking it again. She managed to stop herself from reaching for the back of the collar guard, where the hose that had ruptured and killed her over Alchera would have been located. This particular hardsuit didn’t even have a hose; it had been designed with pressure seals instead. Mentally she grimaced at the impulse. She hadn’t felt the need to check her helmet seals in a long time, but the stress of the current mission was clearly getting to her.

The helmet was too big for her, as was most of the rest of her armour, but she had managed to get it all strapped down enough for it to do the job it was supposed to do. The medium armour weighed a little less than she was used to, but combined with the mismatched pieces of heavy armour the weight issue evened itself out well enough. That was another thing she would need to sort out – a new hardsuit. She doubted she would be able to get hold of her old armour.

The pressurisation indicator light over the door flicked from red to green as Nathan set the shuttle down and opened the hatch. A wave of dust swept in as she jumped out, boots landing with a thump on the tightly packed red soil below. The wind buffeted her as she lifted her assault rifle smoothly from its folded position on her back and brought it up, expanded and ready. She scanned the landing zone, methodically picking out possible cover and choke points, but nothing moved.

“Check that out, Commander,” Kaidan’s voice came over her suit comm, tinny but clear, as he stepped out behind her. “Dust storm.”

She glanced over in the direction he was pointing. There was a dust storm on its way, all right. An impressive one. It billowed up over the horizon and stretched kilometres in either direction. They would have to be off world by the time it got here. “Let’s go. Vega, Briggs, on my flanks. Alenko, on our six,” she ordered. “Move out.”

She headed down the rocky path toward the research base below, keeping a sharp eye out for movement. It wasn’t until she rounded a corner and almost ran headlong into an armoured figure that she saw anything.

In the space of a heartbeat, she took in the white armour, yellow and black insignia and weapon being brought to bear. A quick burst from her rifle, and he was down.

_Shit!_ How had she allowed herself to be surprised like that? She scanned quickly for other hostiles. She hadn’t expected there to be any contacts this far out from the base, but she should have planned for the possibility. Clearly it wasn’t just hand-to-hand where she was a bit out of practice. She clenched her teeth. She couldn’t afford to be out of practice.

She saw no other threats. Kaidan confirmed the all clear a moment later.

She shifted the rifle to one hand and crouched down before the fallen Cerberus soldier. If he was a sentry – and he almost certainly was, being out on his own so far from the base – he would have a radio. Luckily she hadn’t had time to line up a head shot, so his helmet was intact. She started trying to pull it off.

“What are Cerberus doing on Mars?” Kaidan wondered in her general direction. It sounded suspiciously like he was asking her.

_This again?_ She stifled a sigh. “How should I know, Kaidan?” she replied, hearing the resignation in her voice as she spoke. She still considered him to be one of her closest friends even after he had flat out accused her of being a traitor on Horizon. Sometimes she wasn’t sure why.

She knew it must have been hard for him to deal with seeing her again after he had buried her two years prior. She didn’t begrudge him a little suspicion, but that was almost a year ago now. He had apologised to her afterward and she thought he had moved on. _I guess not._

She had intended her reply to be rhetorical but he didn’t take it as such. “You _were_ working for them, Shepard,” he responded, his voice growing taut.

He wanted to do this now? In the middle of a mission?“I didn’t have much choice in the matter,” she said shortly. She grunted as the helmet finally gave way, coming off the dead soldier’s head with a jerk.

“Woah, what the fuck?” Vega whispered.

She rocked back on her heels, staring back at the lifeless ice-blue pits of what were once eyes. The face was human, but creased with black bruises. Blue veins stood out in stark relief against pale, almost translucent skin.

He… it… the thing looked like a husk.

 

* * *

 

Nathan was still feeling a bit restless after the escape from Earth but at least now his left over adrenaline was being put to good use, being on the ground team. His nerves, however, had only gotten worse now that he was on a real mission with Shepard. He knew the only reason he was here at all was because he happened to be with her when she was rescued from Earth, but now he was here he badly wanted to prove he deserved to be.

Nathan swallowed when Shepard pulled the Cerberus trooper’s helmet off, making a valiant effort to avoid throwing up into his helmet. “It looks like those things… husks… we saw back on Earth,” he murmured. “Holy shit.”

“Mm.” Shepard muttered. She was quiet for a moment, taking it in. “I want to know what the hell this thing is doing in a Cerberus uniform.” She tossed the helmet at Nathan. He fumbled with it in revulsion and almost dropped it before getting a hold on it. How was she so okay with this? “See if you can get the radio out of that.”

He took a breath, very much not wanting to touch the thing after it had been on the head of that husk, but he got to work, prying the inner lining out and digging at the wiring underneath while the others kept watch on their surroundings. He kept one eye on Shepard as he worked, wondering about what Major Alenko had said earlier. She had worked for Cerberus?

He had heard of Cerberus, but could have sworn they were some sort of terrorist organisation. He had vague memories of hearing a news report about the involvement of Cerberus in an attack on a turian base using a bioweapon of some sort. There had been no survivors, and if he recalled correctly the deaths had been gruesome. They didn’t seem like the sort of people someone like Commander Shepard would willingly freelance for.

But then again… she had taken three hundred thousand lives because she had decided it was the lesser of two evils. He still didn’t know what the greater evil was, but perhaps it was the same sort of situation with Cerberus?

Alenko didn’t appear to have accepted her answer to his question from before. “Shepard, I need a straight answer from you. You never told me anything about what happened back then, when you were working for these,” he waved a hand at the dead soldier, “assholes. Are you still working for them or not?”

Shepard stood up and whirled on him, anger palpable. She didn’t raise her voice, but her words were all the more vehement because of it. “I _did_ tell you what happened, Kaidan. They rebuilt me after I died and gave me my ship back. But that was _all. I_ recruited my crew and _I_ was in command.”

Wait a second, rebuilt her after she _died?_ Nathan exchanged a surprised glance with Lieutenant Vega, who raised an eyebrow. Nathan felt a stab of worry. Had she hit her head somewhere during their escape from Earth?

Kaidan wasn’t done, and he didn’t appear to think she was delusional. “Oh, sure, they let you believe that. But where did your funding come from, huh? And who told you where to hit next? You followed the Illusive Man’s orders every time!”

“I didn’t just follow…” she began, but to his surprise she trailed off, brow creased with uncertainty. Nathan could see Shepard’s eyes through her faceplate. The anger was still there, but it was now warring with doubt. It was the first time he had ever seen her tongue-tied.

Alenko was quick to take advantage, advancing on her and pointing an accusing finger squarely at her chest. “How do we know you haven’t been in contact with the Illusive Man this whole time? How do we know you’re not still following his orders and leading us into a trap?” he demanded.

Woah, that was way out of line. And it made no sense! Before he really knew what he was doing, Nathan spoke up. “Hey! She had no comms access at all for the last six months, Major. She couldn’t have been talking with anyone,” he protested.

They both looked surprised to hear him speak up, and he felt for a moment as if he had intruded somewhere private. Almost as if he had walked in on a lovers’ quarrel.

Was it? A lovers’ quarrel? That would make an awful lot of sense. The hug she had given him after he pulled them off Earth, the familiarity between them, and now he seemed overly upset about this Cerberus thing. Alenko even sounded… betrayed.

Nathan found himself disliking the idea that the two of them were together. Intensely. He ducked his head and returned his focus to his work, keeping just the one unobtrusive eye on the two of them.

They looked at one another for a long second, before Kaidan spoke. “Fine. All right. We’ve got work to do.”

Shepard’s eyes flashed, but she let it go. She turned her expectant gaze on Nathan instead. “Briggs? Are you done?”

He had just finished pulling out the helmet radio. “Here, Commander,” he said, handing it to her and tossing the helmet gladly on the ground.

She took it roughly and stuffed it into a pocket of her hardsuit. “EDI, come in.”

“ _I read you, Commander Shepard,”_ came the response over his helmet comm, interspersed with static. He hadn’t been introduced to an Edie. The voice sounded slightly robotic. He assumed it was the shipboard VI.

“I need a side entrance of some sort. We have hostiles here, I don’t want to walk straight up to the front door.”

“ _There is an emergency hatch approximately two hundred metres west of the main entrance, opening into the ventilation system’s maintenance section. My records show that it was rarely used, but it_ is _present on the base’s schematics. You will likely experience resistance.”_

“Right. Put it on my HUD. Thanks, EDI.” She raised her rifle. “Let’s go.”

Nathan fell in on her right flank as she deviated from the main path, moving carefully over the rocky landscape. The path she chose was narrow at times, sometimes forcing them to move in single file as they picked their way past rocky outcroppings, but they didn’t run into any more Cerberus troops. The terrain would have been treacherous to exposed human limbs, but their armour protected them sufficiently. Nathan’s armour collected a multitude of dents and scratches along the way.

Finally they reached the hatch, a simple mechanical affair supplemented with an access panel. Shepard motioned him forward and he examined it. “Looks easy, ma’am, should only take a minute or so to crack. The door will open automatically,” he advised.

“Vega, up front,” she ordered, taking a step back. Nathan approved of her choice for point man. The other Lieutenant was a _tank,_ all muscle and firepower, and the hatch was narrow, with room only for one person to go through at a time. Vega stepped forward and took up a position to the side of the hatch, powering up his extra layer of shields. Nathan got to work.

Forty seconds later, he was done. The hatch cracked open with a hiss of hydraulics. Vega cleared the airlock, then stepped inside. Shepard followed and Nathan brought up the rear, behind Kaidan. Nathan sealed the outer hatch and started the pressurisation cycle.

It didn’t take long before the cycle finished, and the light above the inner door turned to green. Once again Vega went through first, sweeping the room for hostiles. “Clear,” he said.

The rest of the team filed into the room. Shepard collapsed her rifle and snapped it into place on her back, then removed her helmet. She triggered its collapse too, which converted it neatly into a rectangular, arced armour plate just big enough to mag-lock into place around her outer thigh. Nathan followed suit, grateful for the cool recycled air that brushed his face.

“Now, let’s see what they’re up to,” Shepard muttered as she took out the radio he had pried out of the Cerberus trooper’s helmet. She fiddled with it for a bit before seeming satisfied, then started pacing as she waited for something to come through, clutching it in one hand. Vega had taken up position at the doorway to the next room. Kaidan found a convenient patch of wall to lean against. Nathan located his own patch of wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

The lack of contact with hostiles aside from the single trooper-turned-husk was getting to him. Getting off Earth had been about survival, but now he had a full set of armour and his guns strapped to his back he wanted some payback. He didn’t know what Cerberus was doing here, nor even really much about them, but if they were using husks to do their dirty work they had to be in league with the Reapers. And that meant they were fair game.

He flexed his fingers. He needed to shoot something, to feel the kickback of his rifle as bullets tore into his target. If Reaper troops were that target, it would make his day, but Cerberus half-husks would do the job too.

After a few minutes, a voice issued from the tiny speaker in Shepard’s hand. She stopped pacing to listen.

_“Sound off.”_

“ _Alpha team_ _in position.”_

_“Beta is clear.”_

_“Delta has no contacts.”_

_“This is Echo, no sign of her here either.”_

_“This is Lead. Ensure she is prevented from accessing the archives. Lock down the ped-way.”_

“’Her’,” Kaidan muttered, displaying no sign of his previous hostility. “Think that’s Liara?”

“Wouldn’t put it past her,” Shepard agreed. Her voice was completely professional too. Nathan was impressed. “Sounds like Cerberus have made it to the archives already, if they’re locking down access routes. We need to move faster.” She clipped the Cerberus radio to her collar and brought up her omnitool, studying a map of the archives compound and the maintenance section specifically for a moment. “It’s a pretty tight fit in this section, lots of narrow corridors. Doesn’t seem to open up until the ped-way station. Briggs, get back to the shuttle. I want a smaller team for the moment.”

Nathan stared at her in dismay. _No way._ “Shep… I mean, Commander—“

“ _Now,_ Lieutenant. I want the shuttle ready to go. We may need to get out of here fast.”

He stared at her, but her tone left no room for argument and her eyes were hard as they met his. “Yes ma’am,” he bit out. He put his helmet back on as he watched them move into the next room, then trudged back into the airlock and set it cycling again.

_Dammit_. He had to guard the bloody shuttle? He slammed an armoured fist into the wall. _Fuck._

Twenty minutes later, he was back in the shuttle and in the pilot’s seat. He had closed the hatch and powered up, but hadn’t taken off. By now the dust storm was getting close enough to start fouling up sensor readings, and there was a nice big cliff to block any visual scans, so he figured he would be safe enough for the moment.

He slouched in his seat, keeping an ear to the comm while he waited for the extraction order. Despite his anger he found it fascinating listening in to the ground team’s movements. Commander Shepard’s voice never wavered as she directed her team, cool, crisp, and confident. It was very different from his own command style… it was drier and more measured, but compelling. He wanted to be part of it, rather than stuck sitting in the shuttle doing nothing.

_“Alenko, two o’clock. Warp.”_ He heard the throaty retort of an assault rifle, then the radio went silent for a couple of heartbeats.

“ _Vega, eleven, suppress.”_

Silent again.

_“Liara, one, singularity.”_ Liara. They must have found her. _“Alenko, warp.”_ The vague, tinny sound of an explosion echoed through the comm.

_“Vega, cover me.”_

This time the silence stretched out for a while. He crossed his arms and forced his foot to stop tapping restlessly on the deck.

“ _Ped-way’s no good, Commander. I can’t unlock it.”_ A new feminine voice… Liara.

“ _Alternatives?”_

_“Those metal supports look pretty wide… we could get across on top of the tunnel. Like a bridge.”_ Alenko.

Nathan took a look out the shuttle’s viewport in the direction of the ped-way, which was encased in a long oblong tube. It was wrapped in a lattice of beams, but he couldn’t tell from this distance what those beams were made of or how strong they were.

“ _Good idea. Liara, your boots have mag-locks?”_

_“Yes, Shepard. There’s a maintenance access point one level up. I’ll get us there.”_

_“Let’s go.”_

Silence again. Then, he could just barely see four figures in armour hurrying across the top of the ped-way, ducking low against the wind and taking halting steps to allow each boot to magnetise one after the other as they moved. He spotted muzzle flashes below, but the tunnel had been reinforced against the volatile Martian atmosphere and the shots didn’t penetrate its walls.

“ _…ready… resistance… door. Vega, point… you can… Alenko… flanking…”_

The signal was starting to decay, no doubt courtesy of the approaching dust storm. Grumbling, Nathan set to work on the comm panel, trying to boost it. The shuttle was a newer model but it wasn’t the dash-B. That model had a bunch of upgraded tech. This one didn’t. It took him a good ten minutes to get the signal back.

“ _… on her now! She can’t escape!”_

He jumped at the raised volume. Shepard was practically yelling into the radio. It was a marked difference from her previous measured commands. He scrambled back into the pilot seat, listening closely.

“ _Cut her off! Alenko, flank!”_ The sound of gunfire, then a weighty pause.

“ _Dammit! She’s heading for the roof!_ Normandy _, get down here now!”_

Although he was sure the _Normandy_ probably had much better comm scrubber tech than he did and would have definitely heard the call, he was a hell of a lot closer than they were. The single mass accelerator cannon on the shuttle’s bow meant he could provide limited air support until they got here. Nathan slapped the panel in front of him, bringing up the haptic interface. He got the shuttle lifting off with one hand while he shrugged into his restraints with the other.

He swung the shuttle’s nose ponderously over towards the second half of the base and opened the thrusters, sending the boxy craft shooting out over the rocky plains below. He angled up and sailed over the ped-way, rising up over the roof’s horizontal plane and swinging around to orbit at a few hundred metres. On the opposite side of the roof to where he was, he spotted another shuttle, this one painted in yellow, black and white. It was coming in for a hot landing, hatch swinging open.

A figure darted across the roof, moving faster than he would have thought possible considering the obstacles in its path. It – she? – swung around and fired a spray of bullets behind her, and Nathan spotted the distinctive red and blue mismatched armour of her pursuer, moving quickly but not _quite_ fast enough to catch up. Shepard skidded into cover behind an air duct, then sprang back up and vaulted over it, sprinting after the fleeing woman.

Nathan opened up with the cannon, aiming for the shuttle, _anywhere_ on the shuttle, trying to disable it or prevent it from taking off, or _something_. He hadn’t had time to aim properly, though, and his shots went wide, scoring the roof instead. Swearing, he swung up high and around again, ready for a second run.

He spotted Shepard, feet planted, unleashing a hail of fire on the shuttle and the woman jumping into it. As he watched, the shuttle began to lift. He fired the cannon again, but had to aim wide this time so he didn’t risk hitting Shepard on the roof below. The shuttle continued to lift, ignoring his fire completely.

“ _She’s got the data!”_ The comm distorted, trying to adjust for the volume of the Commander’s voice. “ _She can’t get away! Briggs!_ Normandy! _Anyone_!”

_Fuck it, if I can just..._ Midway through his strafing run, about to turn out and away to try and angle in on the escaping shuttle’s tail, he changed his mind. With a wrench of the controls, he flung the Kodiak down on an intercept course. If he could get in its way, he could force it down, and if it didn’t stop, well…

The two shuttles collided with a shriek of rending metal. The Kodiak rebounded flatly off to the side of the other shuttle, spinning around and catching on another of those air ducts. Nathan was thrown hard against his restraints and wrenched to the side, shoulder twisting and knee slamming into the panel before him. The Cerberus shuttle crunched into the roof and skidded back towards where Shepard had been standing. Nathan felt a flash of panic, but he spotted her red and blue armour as she ducked in under cover just in time. The Cerberus shuttle burst into flames.

He sat back gingerly, wincing as he tried to move his shoulder. He took a deep breath as a smile spread across his face despite the pain. _Fuck yes!_ He fumbled with his restraints one-handed, shaking from adrenaline. A bubble of laughter escaped his lips. Finally he managed to get the straps undone and stood up on shaky legs, clutching his injured arm to his chest. His knee was painful but didn’t feel broken.

Shepard burst into the shuttle and his laughter died. The expression on her face was _murderous._ He quailed, good arm gripping the back of the pilot’s seat, trying to hold himself up as his knee rebelled.

She didn’t say anything to him though, just ducked in under his arm and slung it across her shoulders, half-carrying him out of the shuttle. “ _Normandy_ , we need extraction at my location,” she spoke into her comm, voice cool and rigidly controlled once more.

Alenko was trying to get in closer to the burning Cerberus shuttle to retrieve the data while Vega ran into the Kodiak and came out with a portable fire extinguisher. Shepard eased Nathan down to the ground.

With no warning, the woman Shepard had been chasing strode out of the shuttle, shrugging the flames away as if they were nothing but a nuisance. She wore a red visor and an angular hair style – too angular to be real hair. Her whole body gleamed a dull silver. She had to be entirely synthetic, though Nathan had never seen a mech that looked like her before.

She advanced on Kaidan, who raised his weapon, but she moved too quickly and his shot went wide. She grasped the chin of his helmet and hoisted him into the air, grabbing his gun with her other hand and tossing it across the roof.

Shepard had her weapon raised and aimed in a flash. “Let him go,” she called, sighting down the barrel, legs braced and ready to fire. Nathan fumbled for his sidearm, awkwardly trying to draw it with his uninjured arm.

The woman didn’t move, other than to raise a hand to her ear. She seemed to be having no problems holding Kaidan half a metre off the ground, despite his struggles. Though the man wasn’t quite as built as James Vega or even Nathan himself, he wasn’t small either.

“Let him go _now,_ ” Shepard tried again, voice hard. She fired a warning shot into the roof. Off to one side, Nathan spotted an asari – Liara? – standing ready, one arm raised but still, awaiting the Commander’s cue. Blue biotic flares flickered down her sides.

In one fluid move, the synthetic woman lowered her hand and spun, almost gracefully, hurling Kaidan bodily against the hull of the shuttle. His helmeted head slammed once, twice into the burning metal, leaving a shallow dent. She dropped him and he slumped bonelessly to the ground. Then she charged at Shepard.

Before he had fallen halfway, Shepard was firing. Coolly, professionally, she poured rounds into the synthetic until it dropped in a tangle of limbs. As soon as it was down, Shepard dropped her rifle and sprinted for Kaidan. Nathan could barely see him from where he sat, but he could tell the Major wasn’t moving. With a sinking feeling, he watched Shepard crouch down and carefully lift him, slinging him over her shoulders. The mech had bashed the man’s head into a solid object, his chances of walking away from that weren’t good. Even with his helmet on.

“ _Ground team, this is_ Normandy. _We’ve got Reapers inbound,”_ Joker’s voice came over the comm in Nathan’s helmet.

He struggled to his feet, looking up as the _Normandy_ sailed in over the roof. Joker lowered the ship smoothly, thrusters humming, presenting the open cargo bay ramp. Shepard was already jogging toward the _Normandy_. She lifted Kaidan’s unconscious form up onto the ramp then hopped up behind him, picking him up again and hurrying into the ship.

Vega had collected the body of the synthetic woman and followed Shepard. Liara was heading for Nathan himself. She took his good arm and urged him to lean on her. Together they ran for the ramp and she helped him up into the ship. They both backed up off the ramp and watched as it closed on the burning Cerberus shuttle below.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I’d like to take a moment to assure you all that Starbrat will not be in this fic.
> 
> Thank you to VorchaGirl for her beta work.

**Chapter Ten**

Shepard leant heavily on the comm station while she waited for Admiral Hackett to appear. She had dropped Kaidan off in the medbay, doing her best not to dwell on his bruised and bloody face. Liara had shooed her out immediately, expression leaving no room for argument, and Shepard had left reluctantly. She wished fervently for Dr Chakwas’ presence. No one on board the Normandy had anything like the medical knowledge that would be required to help Kaidan. She knew it and Liara knew it, which made Liara’s decision to take responsibility for his care all the more brave. If he died…

She turned, pacing the room, unable to stand still. She didn’t want to think about the possibility, but _if_ he died, Liara would feel responsible.

Well, that would make two of them. _If my aim had been as good as it usually is I could have taken Dr Core out before she got anywhere near that shuttle._

If she had been on top of her game, none of this would have happened. She was rusty from her months of incarceration, and her gun hand was still sore from the other night in her room with Nathan. She hadn’t had a spare moment to apply medigel… or, she supposed more accurately, she hadn’t thought to _make_ the time for it. It would have been so easy to fix and it could have cost them--

“ _Shepard?”_

She spun around. The QEC had finally connected with Hackett and she hadn’t noticed. “Sir,” she saluted. “Sorry, sir. I’m here.”

“ _Good.”_ His tone was impatient. He sounded harried. “ _What do you have for me?”_

“We got the data, sir, and Dr T’Soni is confident it will provide the key to defeating the Reapers.” The mission _had_ been a success overall. That was something.

She felt a light touch on her shoulder, and turned to see Liara had come to join her. The lines around the asari’s expressive blue eyes were slightly more pronounced than usual, betraying the strain she was under. She spoke directly to Hackett. “The data contains a blueprint, Admiral. It is a set of instructions for creating a massive weapon, capable of unheard of destruction. The sole purpose of this weapon seems to be to destroy Reapers.”

“ _The Protheans designed this weapon?”_

“Yes. They built it, but were not able to complete its construction before they were wiped out.”

“ _So it was never tested? How do you know it will work?”_

“I… _don’t_ know. I cannot be sure,” Liara admitted. “I know that the Protheans thought it would work, if only by virtue of the fact that building it would have been such a monumental expense that they wouldn’t have done so if it wasn’t going to work. The notes talk about one missing component – something they called the Catalyst. They appear quite certain that if they had been able to obtain this Catalyst, the weapon would work.”

Liara hadn’t mentioned this before. “Catalyst? Do you know what that is?” Shepard asked.

Liara shook her head. “I do not. The Protheans who left this data for us did not know themselves. I suspect the knowledge was disseminated amongst various groups so as to guard against the possibility of indoctrination.”

_“You need to find it, Shepard,”_ Hackett ordered. “ _We’re going to need to build this thing, this…”_

“Crucible,” Liara supplied.

“ _… Crucible.”_ Hackett tested the name and appeared to find it suitable. _“We’ll need to build this Crucible, and fast. I’ll need scientists, engineers, ships, materials. Credits. Anything you can find me. But we can’t rely on it. We need a backup plan. That’s where the army you’re going to build comes in, Shepard. I’ll do what I can from here, but you need to get on that. Make it your top priority.”_

_Jesus,_ she thought. _Anything else?_ Even in her mind, the flippant comment fell flat. The enormity of what he wanted her to do…

She saluted mechanically. “Aye aye, sir.”

_“Is that all?”_

She shook her head grimly. “No. Cerberus was there. The Illusive Man even put in an appearance via holocomm.”

_“Hmm.”_ Hackett rubbed his chin. _“Any idea what he was after?”_

“He wants to find a way to take control of the Reapers, sir. He thinks the data from Mars will help him do that.”

Hackett sighed. “ _Control the Reapers? Of all the stupid… All right. I’ll get Alliance Intel on that data. I want to know what he’ll find. Keep me updated. Hackett out.”_

The hologram faded away, leaving a blank wall behind it. Shepard stared at the wall, thoughts churning. As ominous as the idea of The Illusive Man trying to control the Reapers was by itself, he had said something more to her that had set her internal warning bells ringing. He had seemed to go out of his way to make it clear that she, personally, was no longer important.

From anyone else, she would have brushed it off as bravado, or even meaningless words to drag out a conversation that was clearly engineered to be a distraction. But from the Illusive Man…

She had to consider meanings behind meanings. She was well aware that he had been furious after she stole the _Normandy_. The comment could have been a dig at her personally, a glimmer of his own anger at her defiance slipping out from beneath his usual façade, but she doubted it. The Illusive Man had never displayed such a lack of self-control.

No, a more likely scenario was that the opposite was true. He still considered her to be vitally important in some way, either to him or to something he was planning, and he wanted to throw her off the scent. The man had poured four billion credits into resurrecting her from the dead because he had considered her too valuable to leave that way. She didn’t think for a second that he wouldn’t at the very least try and recoup his losses somehow, when it came to her. She would have to keep her guard up.

It was time to get going. Time to get to work on building this army Hackett wanted.

_He wanted her to build a goddamn army!_

She shook her head. “Joker, get us moving to the Citadel,” she ordered, striding out of the comm room with Liara.

 

* * *

 

Nathan limped into the ship’s mess, favouring his bruised knee and keeping his injured arm close to his stomach. The medigel his armour had dispensed had worn off a little while ago, leaving his injuries sore and wearing at his temper, so he was glad the place was empty at the moment. He glanced over at the medbay. The windows were darkened. He assumed Liara was still working on Kaidan inside. All he really needed were some decent painkillers and a scan to make sure his shoulder wasn’t dislocated, but he knew his injuries were much lower in priority than Kaidan’s and didn’t want to barge into the medbay for something so comparatively trivial.

He had enlisted Vega’s help to remove his armour and skin suit, which was both necessary and far too awkward for either of them to be particularly comfortable with, and had then managed to drag himself into the showers on the crew deck. It had taken no small amount of effort, but he had scrubbed off most of the dust and grime and even managed to give his hair a cursory wash. Dressing was… a bit more of an endeavour. He had managed his blue and white undershirt okay – painful as it had been – but hadn’t been able to get his uniform pants zipped and buttoned. There was no way in blue hell he was going to ask for Vega’s help with _that._ And his belt was a total lost cause. After a while he had given up and threw on a spare pair of shorts with an elastic waistband that one of the crew had been kind enough to lend him.

Now he rummaged through the cupboards, damp hair spiking up in all directions, searching for something he could manage to prepare and eat with one hand. There were precious little in the way of supplies on board, which wasn’t surprising considering the _Normandy_ had been in drydock until a few hours ago. After going through almost every cupboard he found a stack of ration bars, although considering they had probably been sitting there since before Shepard had turned herself and her ship in to the Alliance he wasn’t sure if that was better than finding nothing at all.

He pulled a couple of bars out of the cupboard and took them over to one of the tables. He sat down and grabbed one of them, then set to work trying to get the strong plastic wrapper off. He tried holding it in the hand on his injured side and pulling the plastic with his other hand, but it was irritatingly stubborn and he only succeeded in wrenching his shoulder.

He gritted his teeth and fumed silently. He wouldn’t be in this position if Shepard hadn’t sent him back to guard the shuttle. Because of that, he had been the only thing available to prevent Cerberus from getting away. He had pulled it off the only way he could think of to do it, which had resulted in his injuries.

Why had she been so angry with him when she pulled him out of the shuttle? It made no sense!

The fact that she had been angry only made _him_ angrier. He could handle being reprimanded by a superior, but only if he had actually done something to deserve it. He had saved data vital to the war! He had stopped the mission from being a total failure!

After the pain had muted somewhat he swapped hands and was about to try again when he heard the elevator doors open. The muffled thump of armoured boots in a measured stride rang out on the deck, and Shepard rounded the corner.

He looked up, unable to completely suppress a glare as his shoulder and knee throbbed with a dull, persistent pain. She was still wearing her borrowed armour, collapsed red helmet clamped to the blue plating covering her thigh, guns still on her back. Tendrils of auburn hair had come loose and were stuck to her cheeks and forehead with dried sweat. Somehow she had managed to get a smudge of red Martian dirt on her forehead. The armour really did look ridiculous, like a costume from an old twenty-first century comic book. The chest piece she had found was way too big for her. Her chin just managed to clear the collar guard.

The fact that she looked completely adorable only made him angrier.

Her eyes narrowed as she spotted him. “On your feet, Lieutenant,” she ordered, striding over.

_Fuck._ He obeyed, trying to do his best impression of standing at attention while attempting to not move his arm or put his weight on his knee too much. It didn’t work very well. He supposed he cut a pitiful figure in his borrowed shorts, undershirt and bare feet.

Her eyes flicked over his awkward stance and she sighed. “You look like hell. Come on,” she said. She spun around and headed for the medbay.

What was she…? Having no choice, he followed her warily through the doors. His eyes fell on the still form of Major Alenko. He was breathing, but only barely. Dr T’Soni was nowhere in evidence, but the Major was hooked up to an IV and appeared more or less to be sleeping peacefully.

Shepard glanced over for a moment, face unreadable, but didn’t stop for a closer look. She led him to one of the other beds and indicated for him to sit. She rummaged through one of the cabinets and pulled out a tube of medigel. She must have realised he hadn’t taken care of his injuries yet. Grudgingly he felt a stab of gratitude. “Shirt off,” she directed.

He blinked. There was a joke there, he knew it, something about waiting for a long time to hear her say that, but he was too grumpy and sore to make the effort. The thought of lifting his arm again to try and remove his shirt, and then having to lift the arm once more to put the shirt back on again, made him turn green. “Uh… is there any way we can work around the shirt?” he asked in a pained voice.

She looked at him with a critical eye. “I’m sure I can manage.”

Wait, what? _She_ could manage? She wasn’t just going to hand him the medigel and tell him to get on with it?

She pulled her gauntlets off and squirted a liberal amount of medigel onto her palms. Then without preamble she moved in close and ran one hand up his bicep and under his sleeve. The other she slid under the neck of his shirt from his collarbone. Using both hands, she massaged the gel into his skin.

Nathan closed his eyes for a moment. _Oh God._ Her hands were firm, but gentle, and warm on his skin. When he opened his eyes she was standing so close that he could see where beads of sweat had dried in the red dirt on her forehead. Her armoured leg was almost touching his. There was nothing in her expression or her stance to indicate that she was being anything but completely professional, a fellow soldier helping another out, but that didn’t seem to matter to his treacherous brain. As the pain in his shoulder receded, tingles began spreading from the top of his head, down through his stomach, and… _goddammit, brain, I’m really pissed off with her right now, this isn’t the time…_

He looked away quickly, and his eyes fell on Major Alenko’s still form. That quickly solved the growing problem. Major Alenko had almost _died_ down there on Mars and was now lying still on a medbay bed. Fuck sake, there was a war going on. Earth was under attack by monsters that looked like they had come straight from one of those old B-grade twentieth century horror movies. He had more important things to think about than getting all worked up over his bloody _commanding officer._ Especially now, when he was still furious with her.

When she moved on to his knee, crouching to give herself a better angle, he _almost_ threw that whole train of thought out the window.

Finally she finished up and he allowed himself to relax. As she rinsed her hands off and pulled her gauntlets back on, he gingerly tried to raise his arm. _No pain._ He let out a breath in relief, moving his knee around freely. The wonders of medi-gel. It wouldn’t fix the bruising but it would make it bearable until he could see a doctor. “Thanks, Commander,” he told her grudgingly.

She looked over at Kaidan again, then tilted her head toward the door. He followed her back out into the still-empty mess. When they were a good distance away from the medbay, she rounded on him, folding her arms across her chest. “Now that you don’t look like you’re going to fall over if the wind blows the wrong way, we can have a little chat about what you did on Mars. What the _fuck_ were you thinking, Lieutenant?” she demanded.

He gritted his teeth. “I was following your orders, ma’am,” he told her.

“I don’t remember ordering you to use my shuttle as a battering ram.”

His temper flared. When she put it like that, it sounded as though he had treated the whole thing like it was a game. “You called for back-up! I backed you up!”

“You risked all of our lives in a reckless stunt! You risked your _own_ life and lost us a valuable piece of hardware,” Shepard’s voice had risen as she spoke and was now close to shouting. “And now you’re arguing with your commanding officer! Stand at attention, soldier.”

He snapped to attention, glowering over her shoulder. He fought to keep himself from saying something he would regret.

“Didn’t you think about the consequences at all? If you had come in at a slightly different angle, _both_ shuttles could have been destroyed on impact. An explosion like that would have taken out the whole ground team, including Dr T’Soni and the data we needed.” Her voice lowered to an icy chill. “You could have lost us the war right there, Lieutenant.”

His anger flared again. No way could she put that sort of responsibility on him. _No way._ He opened his mouth to retort but she cut him off.

“Keep your mouth _shut,_ Lieutenant. You were lucky. _Very_ lucky. I don’t ever want to see you do something that stupid again. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She raised her voice to that time-honoured drill sergeant tone that never failed to cut through to a marine’s very soul. “ _I said, is that understood, marine?”_

There was only one way to respond to that tone. “Ma’am! Yes, ma’am!” he snapped, back rigid, eyes straight ahead.

Shepard turned and paced a couple of steps, running her gloved hand over her hair. It came away dusty. “All right. At ease. Use your goddamn brain next time, Briggs.” The anger had fled, and she now just sounded exhausted. “We’ll be at the Citadel in a few hours. I want you to come ashore with me, so be ready. I’m heading up to get some rest. I suggest you do the same.”

Rigidly, he saluted. “Ma’am.” She nodded and left for the elevator.

He dropped into his seat, viciously ripping the plastic off one of the ration bars now that he could move his shoulder. He finished it off in two angry bites and moved on to the next. Had she _seriously_ just said that he could have cost them the war? What the hell kind of thing was that to say to someone? All he had done was come when she called! He had followed orders!

It wasn’t like the shuttle could _actually_ have been destroyed. Kodiaks were practically flying bricks, rated for all sorts of crazy atmospheric conditions. He supposed they hadn’t been certified for ramming solid objects but still…

And blowing up the whole ground team? No way! The mass effect core of the Kodiak was well-shielded for just such an eventuality, as were the mass accelerator cannons. The only way that could have happened was if the other shuttle didn’t have the same fail-safes. Which he supposed he didn’t know for certain, but they were standard on all… Alliance…

But he hadn’t had time to think about that! He had needed to act fast, before the shuttle got away. He hadn’t had time for any sort of thinking at all, really…

He sighed. _Shit._ She might have had a point. And… now that he thought about it… he could also have accidentally brought the shuttle down right on top of them. _Fuck._ He shook his head, anger slowly and grudgingly receding. Dammit, she was right. He could have cost them the mission. He could have killed them.

Part of him wanted very badly to stay angry, but he just couldn’t do it. He crossed his arms on the table and let his head flop down onto them. Why hadn’t he thought about what he was doing for a moment more? He could have come around and had a clear shot on the Cerberus shuttle if he had allowed it to take off. He wouldn’t have even had to rely on his own single cannon – he could have herded it neatly up to the waiting _Normandy_.

It had been a stupid idea. A reckless, stupid idea.

He had wanted so badly to take his anger and fear about Earth out on something, anything that could be justified, that he had rushed in without thinking.

_Fuck._ While they were off flying around in the _Normandy_ , people were dying on Earth. People he could be protecting.

But… the data they had retrieved had obviously been important, although he hadn’t been told why. He wasn’t sitting around on the ship doing nothing. They were helping… somehow. He had told Shepard on Earth that he trusted her. Maybe he would actually have to do that.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

_Shepard could feel the cold seeping through her armour, rising from the uneven stone ground below and pressing in around her like a vice. She was in a corridor, walls rough and rocky, but familiar. Her breath echoed harshly within the sealed confines of her helmet. She raised her weapon slowly… excruciatingly slowly. She started moving forward, and it felt like she was wading through water. Her body was heavy, her muscles sore and aching._

_A wordless cry came from her helmet comm and somehow she knew to look over towards her left flank, taking in the glass-and-obsidian pipe that ran along the wall. Tali was inside. She had stopped at a junction and was calling her name, screaming, it was too hot and she was burning._

_Shepard knew what to do – after all, she had done it before. She ran for the glowing green plate that signalled a release valve, only she was moving so slowly. She wanted to tell Tali not to worry, that she was coming and would get her out, but her throat constricted and she couldn’t draw the breath to speak. She ran faster, forcing her legs to move, feeling a building fire in her lungs, but she was still slow, so slow. Tali was wailing as the temperature inside the conduit increased, and still Shepard couldn’t quite get to the valve._

_She reached her hand out, stretching desperately, as her friend’s screams turned to whimpers and she slumped to the ground._

_The green panel flickered and faded, winking out of existence, as Shepard’s gloved hand passed through it._

_Bile rose up in her throat as she stared at Tali’s crumpled body, suit burned away in places, face plate cracked. She wanted to throw up, but suddenly her surroundings lurched and blurred and she was standing on a familiar black obsidian platform. She was staring out at her team as they massed, preparing to defend against a Collector onslaught so she would have enough time to set the base to blow._

_She knew she had taken Miranda and Samara with her to destroy the base and kill the human reaper… but they weren’t standing next to her now. She was alone on the platform. Why was she alone? She spotted them in the group below. All were milling around, trying to find cover from the limited choices available, preparing weapons, speaking grimly to one another as they waited for the Collectors to burst through the bulkhead doors._

_Confused, she tried to issue orders. Jack had chosen a precarious spot near the front where she could easily be flanked. She ordered her to move. But she didn’t. None of them noticed her, no matter how much or how loud she shouted._

_The platform jerked and started to move backward, away from her team, and at the same moment the doors cracked ponderously open. Shepard tried to step forward – she shouldn’t be on the platform alone, she had to help her team – but found that she couldn’t move at all now. She watched, helplessly, as fire and light began to cascade between the two forces._

_Jack was the first to take a hit. She had been flanked. She was thrown back, hitting the ground with a heavy thump, limp and still before she got there. Shepard tried to move again, to get back over there somehow, to save her people, but nothing happened. She strained with all her limbs, watching as Thane was caught by a warp, sending him writhing to the ground. Kasumi clutched at her stomach, blood welling through her fingers, and fell to her knees. Grunt collapsed, grasping at his throat as his faceplate was blown clear off._

_One by one they all fell, and she watched, helpless, rage warring with despair. ‘_ It didn’t happen like this!’ _she screamed, making no sound. Her throat closed again… but now suddenly she could move. She tried to rush forward but the scene changed again, shifting and lurching and spinning…_

_The floor fell out from beneath her feet and she was hanging, floating in blackness. She couldn’t breathe. She clawed at her throat, gloved fingers crashing against her visor, legs twisting as she floated into space, away from the dying_ Normandy _. She reached behind her head, grasping for the broken air hose, scrabbling at the cracked ceramic of her armour but unable to reach the writhing hose itself. The ice blue planet below whirled dizzily around her, even as her vision started to grow dim. Her arms grew weaker as she kept stretching them futilely over her shoulders. She heaved a burning breath, lungs straining and finding no relief—_

Shepard jerked upright, sucking air into her lungs quickly, hyperventilating. She gasped, reaching again for the hose, fingers knotting into hair…

Hair. Not helmet.

She fell back onto the pillows, concentrating on trying to force her breathing to slow down. She was on the _Normandy_. In her cabin. Not outside in space. She was alive.

_“Shepard, I detect an anomaly in your vital signs.”_ EDI’s calm, pleasant voice sounded concerned as it issued from the overhead speakers. _“Are you experiencing any difficulties?”_

Shepard could feel her heart rate start to slow as the effects of the dream wore off. She managed to sound only slightly breathless when she spoke. “EDI… No, I… It was just a bad dream.” She took a careful, slow breath. “I’m fine.”

There was a long pause. _“My research shows that warm cow’s milk may often counteract the inability to sleep peacefully in humans. I do not believe we currently have cow’s milk in stock; however, perhaps another liquid such as water would prove beneficial?”_

Shepard smiled weakly. The dream had been a bad one, but EDI’s calm, pleasant voice made her feel a little better. “That’s a good idea, EDI, thank you,” she replied.

_“I’m glad I could be of assistance, Shepard. Logging you out.”_

She closed her eyes for a moment, grimacing at the memory of Tali’s burnt, lifeless body. Her squad falling to the Collectors, one by one. Her dying breath over Alchera. She hadn’t dreamt of _that_ in weeks. Months maybe.

It didn’t take a genius to work out why it had come back now _._ Kaidan had almost been killed on Mars. And Admiral Hackett had all but laid the responsibility for defeating the Reapers entirely on her shoulders.

Kaidan. His lingering doubts about her had caught her off guard, and the aggressive way he had pushed them had surprised her. The Kaidan she knew had never been aggressive. He could be forceful when he wanted to be, but never outright angry, particularly not with her… except for that one time on Horizon. Mars had been like Horizon all over again, except that this time she was far less willing to take his verbal attacks, and this time when she had faltered it had been Nathan who had stepped up to defend her rather than Garrus.

She had been angry too, at the time, completely floored that he still harboured suspicions about her motives and that he would choose to air them in the middle of a critical mission. What had happened to him during the two years she had been dead to make him completely lose his mild-mannered amiability? And his trust in her?

But her anger had dissipated now. She had had enough of coddling him, trying to be understanding about what he had gone through while she was gone. Sure, he had thought she was dead, but _she had died!_ She had died, then woken up cold and half-naked in a Cerberus lab. Cerberus!

She had saved millions of lives by taking down the Collectors and she had been forced to do it without the Alliance’s help. If Kaidan wanted to go on thinking that by doing so she had betrayed him personally in some way that was his prerogative. It had nothing to do with her anymore.

Despite all that… she didn’t want him to die. She had considered him a friend once. Up until the Mars mission, she still had. That was no longer the case, but he was still a soldier under her command and she would be devastated if he didn’t make it.

She glanced at the chrono. She had been asleep for only two hours, but there was no way she would be able to get any more sleep now. The remnants of her dream still lingered like shadows in her mind. Perhaps she could spend some time visiting Kaidan before they arrived at the Citadel. She rolled out of bed, carefully avoiding looking at the stars and blackness of space through the viewport overhead, and padded on bare feet through the darkened cabin to the shower.

She let herself have a long, hot soak, washing away the sleep and any remaining dirt and sweat left over from the escape from Earth and the Mars op. She had fallen straight into bed after removing her armour, without bothering to shower, when she had come up to her cabin after speaking with Nathan earlier.

She shook her head. Nathan. What the hell could he have been thinking? That stunt he pulled had been something worthy of an eighteen year old straight out of basic training. Was he trying to prove something? Trying to impress her? She had been worried she might get that sort of thing from Vega – he occasionally had the same glimmer of hero worship in his eyes she had once seen from Conrad Verner – but so far the big man hadn’t done anything stupid. He had in fact proved himself to be a highly capable soldier.

Nathan, on the other hand, she had thought she wouldn’t have to worry about. He had never displayed any tendencies toward hero worship. In fact, he had never even seemed to _like_ her very much until a month or two ago. He had started to warm up to her then, and she to him. She thought he considered her a friend.

But maybe… had that moment they almost shared in her cell meant more to him than she thought it did? At the time she had all but brushed it off as a side effect of the alcohol they had been drinking, but what if it was more than that? She had felt his eyes on her in the medbay, when she applied the medigel to his injuries. What if he actually _felt_ something for her? If that was the case, she _supposed_ it would make sense for him to pull stupid stunts to try and impress her…

No. The man was reckless, but he wasn’t a teenage boy out to impress a girl in high school. In all likelihood, it had just been lack of foresight, a decision made in the heat of the moment. He probably just hadn’t thought his actions through. It could even have been a simple desire to look good in the eyes of a new CO, like… a normal soldier. Her team had been full of specialists, the best of the best, for so long that she had forgotten what it was like to lead regular soldiers. Nathan was by no means a bad soldier, he was just… a regular marine.

Of course, that didn’t mean he _didn’t_ feel something for her. It was an… intriguing thought.

She poured some honey and cinnamon scented shower gel into her palm and lathered it up, spreading it languorously over her body. The gel was one of very few indulgences she allowed herself, and if any of her crew ever found out about it she would deny it to her last breath. She had a reputation to uphold, after all. But there was something about the smell of cinnamon and honey mixing with steaming hot water that melted her muscles and forced her to relax. Right now she needed to relax.

Regardless of whether Nathan had a thing for her or not, hopefully the dressing down she had given him would prompt him to think ahead a bit more in future. He hadn’t seemed to react well to it, and she knew she hadn’t particularly enjoyed having to deliver it, but he had saluted and yes-ma’am’ed like a good marine. She couldn’t really ask for much more than that. If the problem reoccurred in future, she would deal with it then.

She stepped out of the shower and dried herself off, then took her clean uniform out of the auto-launderer hidden in a bulkhead by her desk. She dressed quickly and pulled her hair into a neat regulation bun, taking a bit more care with it than she normally would. She needed to speak with the Council when they arrived at the Citadel, and probably Udina as well. After that, she had a bunch of errands to run, including heading to the Alliance satellite office to sort out armour and uniforms for herself and Nathan, and various miscellaneous items for the crew. They had all fled Earth with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs. Normally she would leave it up to her crew to take care of their own uniform requirements, but she suspected that it would take a bit of clout to get them all kitted out quickly, now that the war had begun.

While she was there, she also needed to arrange a replacement shuttle. Requisitions wouldn’t be too happy about _that_ expense, but there was no way she was going to leave port with anything less than a fully supplied ship. Speaking of, she also wanted to look into getting a dedicated shuttle pilot and a CMO. Karin Chakwas would be ideal for Chief Medical Officer, of course, but she had no idea what she was doing these days. She glanced toward the alcove where EDI’s blue avatar would have appeared back on the Cerberus version of the SR-2. “EDI.”

Of course, the little blue sphere didn’t materialise, but EDI’s voice issued from the cabin speakers. “ _Yes, Commander?”_

“Can you find out where Karin Chakwas is currently posted?” she asked.

“ _Dr Chakwas is assigned to Alliance Research and Development, at a facility situated in the Shalta Wards, on the Citadel.”_

On the Citadel? Well, that was a lucky coincidence. “Can you send her a message, EDI? Ask her if she would like to meet with me.”

“ _Of course, Commander. I will advise you when there has been a reply.”_

Satisfied with her hair, Shepard pulled her BDU jacket on and headed out the door, buttoning it up as she went. Head down, she ran straight into Liara.

The asari raised her hands, catching Shepard by the shoulders. “Shepard,” she greeted her, amused.

Shepard winced. “Sorry, Liara. I guess I’m still a bit tired.”

Liara nodded, appearing concerned. “EDI told me you didn’t sleep very well.”

Shepard glanced up at the ceiling, lip twitching in annoyance. “EDI.”

“ _My research also shows that humans gain comfort by speaking with close friends. I merely wished to ensure you are fully recovered, Commander.”_

Shepard sighed. “Thank you, EDI.”

“ _Logging you out, Commander.”_

“It’s… _she_ is very helpful, isn’t she?” Liara sounded far too impressed.

“She can be,” Shepard grumbled. _When she wasn’t meddling._ She turned back to her cabin. “Come on in, have a seat.”

She slumped onto her couch, leaving Liara to take the other side. “What have you got for me?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

Liara frowned. “First, are you all right?”

Shepard scrubbed a hand over her face. She was used to bad dreams. They came with the territory. She felt like she should be able to deal with them without getting Liara or anyone else involved. But Liara was a good friend and deserved more than just a brush-off. “I… dreamed about dying again,” she admitted reluctantly. “I woke up and I couldn’t breathe.”

She cringed at the pity in Liara’s expression. “Oh, Shepard,” she murmured. “That must have been horrible.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t fun. But we have more important things to deal with.” She cut off any further sympathy, changing the subject. She really didn’t want to dwell on it. “You needed to see me?”

The asari didn’t seem too happy to just drop the subject but she inclined her head anyway. “Yes, I did. I wanted to let you know that I have gathered together all the information we possess on the Crucible, and I will be ready to present it to the Council when you meet with them.”

“Good. Hopefully they’ll listen to me this time, but I’m not holding my breath. They never have before. Why start now?”

“Perhaps they will realise that not listening to your warnings about the Reapers is what got us all into this mess?”

Shepard snorted. “Ha. You planning a move into stand-up comedy, Liara?”

Liara made a face and lent forward, elbows on her knees. “Shepard, there’s something else.”

Shepard sat back, crossing her legs. She had a feeling she wouldn’t like this, whatever it was. “Go on.”

“I’m… not going to be able to stay on the _Normandy_ with you when you leave the Citadel,” Liara said, eyes firmly on the floor.

Nope, she didn’t like it. “What? Why not?” she asked, leaning forward again.

“Now that I’m the Shadow Broker, I need to be somewhere with access to as many communication channels as possible, both physical and electronic. The _Normandy_ won’t be able to reliably provide me with that.”

“But… surely the Shadow Broker can delegate.”

“Not well enough.” Liara shook her head and looked up. “Shepard, I’m going to be the most useful to you and the war effort if I have access to as much information as possible. I’m not going to get that on this ship.”

“Your ability to obtain information is not your only asset, Liara,” Shepard protested. “You’re also one of the strongest biotics I know, and a good fighter. Someone I can trust to have my back.”

“You can find other biotics, but you can’t find another information broker. Not one you can be sure is completely loyal.”

Shepard gritted her teeth. Damn her, but she was right. “You’re also my friend.”

Liara smiled sadly. “Yes, I am. And I will continue to be even if I’m not on your ship. I’ll speak to Specialist Traynor before I leave. We’ll make sure a secure connection is set up between my base and the _Normandy_. And whenever you’re on the Citadel, you will make _sure_ to visit me.”

Shepard sighed and nodded. “I will. I suppose I understand, Liara. I don’t like it, but I understand.”

“Thank you, Shepard.” Liara stood. Shepard followed suit. “I need to speak with Specialist Traynor. I will probably be gone by the time you return to the ship. Shepard… I’m not going to wish you luck. You won’t need it. We _will_ defeat the Reapers.”

Shepard pulled her friend into an embrace, holding her tightly. She was sure she would see her again, but this moment felt so final. She supposed it could be. The galaxy was no longer safe. The Citadel could come under attack tomorrow. She didn’t want to let Liara go without a proper goodbye.

But she couldn’t think of anything meaningful to say. Instead, she replied, “Yes, we will. Goodbye, Liara.”


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve**

Nathan dawdled near the _Normandy_ hologram in the CIC, waiting for Shepard. His shoulder and knee were both feeling a little better than they had originally, but he was keen to get moving and get to the hospital to have them taken care of. The medi-gel had worn off and they were starting to hurt again.

Major Alenko had already been rushed off the ship by a team of doctors and emergency workers. He hoped the Major would be okay. He had seemed like a decent guy despite the accusations he had been throwing at Shepard on Mars. And if he and Shepard were really together, well… as much as he detested that idea, he didn’t want the guy to die. And he didn’t want Shepard to have to deal with that if it happened.

He was still annoyed with the way she had chewed him out over the shuttle incident, but sleep and time had calmed him down somewhat. He didn’t think he deserved to be taken to task like that, especially when his actions had prevented Cerberus escaping with the data they needed. But… he knew he had stuffed up. He had endangered the team and the mission. Grudgingly, he accepted that.

He didn’t have to wait long for Shepard to arrive, dressed neatly in BDUs, jacket buttoned tightly, not a hair out of place. He fought the urge to check his own jacket, knowing he didn’t scrub up nearly as well.

They had docked at the Citadel only a few minutes ago; she seemed just as keen as he was to get moving. He nodded companionably in greeting, hoping to convey that he wasn’t going to be holding a grudge. “Commander.”

“Briggs,” she replied, nodding in return. “Ready to go?”

“Yes ma’am.” He followed her into the airlock and stood awkwardly while the doors cycled through, trying to think of something to say to fill the silence.

She beat him to it. “Briggs, I stand by what I said last night.” She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts, then continued, “Except the bit about you costing us the war. That was too much.” He glanced at her in surprise. Her brows were drawn, expression grim. “I’m sorry.”

Well, he hadn’t expected _that_. “It’s okay,” he finally replied. “You were right, overall. I didn’t think. It was a dumb thing to do.”

She nodded and the tiny decontamination chamber fell silent. Damn, he hadn’t expected her to apologise to him. No commanding officer had ever done _that_ before. Had she apologised as his CO, though, or as his friend? The CO certainly didn’t need to apologise even if she _had_ been out of line, but the friend…

A weight he hadn’t realised was there lifted from his chest. That apology _had_ to mean Shepard still thought of him as a friend. Suddenly the air felt a little clearer, more relaxed. For the first time since they had both almost been vaporised by the Reapers back on Earth he felt like the door might be open for them to get back to the way it used to be between them.

Unable to stand the silence any longer, he asked, “So, what’s the plan, ma’am?” then immediately cringed. Oh for the love of… he had rhymed. Had he really just _rhymed?_

Shepard cast a glance at him, lip quirking in amusement at his discomfort. She cast her eyes to the ceiling in thought. “Um… we’re going to go fix your… impairment… Lieutenant?”

He groaned, looking at her with an affronted expression. “Oh, come on. You could have just let my stupid rhyme slip by unnoticed, Shepard. You didn’t have to try and one-up me.”

“Oh yes I did. You crashed my shuttle. I’m entitled to give you as much shit as I want.”

He felt an involuntary grin spread across his face. That wasn’t the Commander talking. That was the Shepard he knew. That was his friend. “I’m going to be hearing about that for a long time, aren’t I?” She nodded almost gleefully, a bright grin on her face as she looked up at him. His expression turned sly. “You know, you could say your joke… crashed and burned.”

She wrinkled her nose and made a face at him. Warmth spread through his chest. Bad jokes were their _thing_. Maybe they would be okay. Maybe they _could_ slip back into the easy friendship they had developed before fleeing Earth. He hadn’t realised how much he had missed it.

The outer hatch opened, and a smooth mechanical voice emanated from above their heads. “ _Logged: the commanding officer is ashore. Flight Lieutenant Moreau has the deck_.”

Shepard glanced up. “Oh, they put _that_ back? Great,” she murmured. Nathan didn’t ask.

They headed down the docking ramp and out into the bay proper, Nathan favouring his bruised knee as he walked. The common area was linked to a number of other docks, so it was always going to be busy, but it seemed remarkably so at the moment. Numerous humans, turians and asari were milling around in the waiting area, and there was a long line to go through the security checkpoint.

Nathan studied the crowd dubiously, happy mood fading away. He didn’t like their chances of getting through without Shepard being recognised. If people thought she was an escaped criminal, it could be a problem. He bent his head so he could speak in a lowered voice and she would still hear him. “Shepard, did you get reinstated?”

She nodded. “I did. You’ve been assigned to my crew as part of my marine detachment.”

Huh. He hadn’t considered the fact that he could have been reassigned. He was glad he hadn’t been. But it was beside the point right now. “Are people aware of that? What about your… trial?” he asked cautiously as they joined the line for security.

“You mean ‘what about the fact that everyone thinks I’m a mass-murderer’? It’s been taken care of,” she replied distractedly, assessing the crowded room herself.

Taken care of? What was that supposed to mean? Were they in danger or not? He noticed that heads were turning their way. Whispers had started. It set his teeth on edge. He had to force his hand not to stray towards his sidearm.

If he listened carefully, he could just barely hear the conversation two human women dressed in civilian clothing were having while casting veiled glances in Shepard’s direction. He eavesdropped, hoping that “taken care of” constituted some sort of public announcement.

“Isn’t that…”

“Of course not, she’s in prison, or dead. Earth was invaded, remember?”

“No she’s not, I heard it on the news this morning. She escaped!”

“What, prison?”

“No, Earth! The Reapers didn’t get her. As if they ever could. And she’s been fully pardoned.” Nathan raised his eyebrows and glanced at Shepard. Well, that would certainly “take care of” it.

“What? No way! She killed thousands—“

“Because she had to! If she didn’t, the Reapers would have been here six months ago.”

Nathan froze. _Holy shit._ So that was why…

But she had never mentioned anything other than claiming her actions had been necessary. Suddenly Anderson’s words from that meeting in his office six months ago made sense. He had said the same thing. At the time Nathan hadn’t believed the Admiral. He hadn’t been able to conceive of any possible justification for killing three hundred thousand civilians. But now… after seeing the devastation the Reapers had brought to Earth, he began to understand. He didn’t know _how_ killing so many people could postpone a Reaper invasion but if it had, Shepard had probably saved many more lives than she had taken.

The fact that she had been put in a position where it was necessary for her to make that decision, though… it chilled his blood.

“Oh my god! I knew it! Commander Shepard would never do something like that unless she had no other choice! She’s a hero!”

“I know! And I swear that’s her over there, have a look.”

“It can’t be… oh. Wow. I think you’re right. Oh my god.”

“I told you so! Wait, I’m going to go over.”

“No, don’t! You can’t! She’ll… shoot you or something!”

“ _Shoot_ me? Are you serious? She’s Commander Shepard!”

Nathan glanced at Shepard, wondering if she had heard. “Uh…” he began.

“I see them. It’s all right,” she reassured him. “I’m used to this, it happened all the time a few months—I mean, a couple of years ago, after the Battle of the Citadel. Or,” she amended wryly, “I had better _get_ used to it, if you ask Hackett.”

The women he had been listening to approached them hesitantly. The shorter, blonde one spoke up first. “Um… I’m so sorry to bother you, but are you Commander Shepard?” she asked.

Shepard smiled politely. “Yes,” she replied. More heads turned their way, and a small crowd began to gather. Nathan’s skin prickled, but he forced himself to stand calmly by her side.

The blonde woman smoothed her palms over her thighs and looked at her friend for help. “Um…”

The taller woman seemed just as tongue-tied, but with a visible effort she gathered her courage and offered her hand to Shepard. “Commander Shepard. It’s an honour,” she gasped.

Shepard shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you,” she said, and Nathan was surprised at the genuine warmth in her voice. She offered her hand to the blonde woman, who shook it nervously after a moment’s trepidation. She looked like she was about to faint.

Suddenly other hands were being offered. Shepard shook them one by one, exchanging small greetings, seemingly unfazed by the crowd that had gradually started to grow around her. To his surprise, Nathan found that some of the people were actually offering their hands to _him_ as well _._ Perhaps it was his uniform, or his proximity to Shepard? He wasn’t sure, but he shook them to be polite, feeling awkward.

One man took hold of Shepard’s hand when she approached him and didn’t let go. Nathan tensed, but could see no malice in his eyes, only worry and pain. “Commander,” the man said, “Have you heard any news about Earth?”

A shadow flickered over her face for a moment, then was gone. “I just came from Earth.” She took a breath. “I won’t lie to you. It’s bad,” she admitted. She subtly directed her next words to the crowd as a whole, pitching her voice a little higher, while still focussing on the man before her. “But we’re not beaten yet. We have teams on the ground already, mounting a resistance. We have whole fleets of ships intact, and we have the people to fly them. And,” she smiled proudly, “we have the best marines in the galaxy.” The crowd, made up mostly of humans, murmured in agreement at that. “I’m here on the Citadel to speak to our allies. It’s going to be tough, but we _will_ defeat the Reapers.”

Nathan saw the fire in her eyes reflected in the eyes of the man whose hand she was holding. He grinned at her and without warning, pulled her into a fierce hug as the crowd rustled appreciatively at her words. Nathan found himself stepping forward reflexively, but the man just whispered something into her ear, then let her go with a clap on the back.

Nathan shook his head minutely. Shepard’s little speech had gotten to him too. He found himself slightly more energised, more optimistic, even though he was well aware of the realities of the situation. The best marines in the galaxy weren’t going to help them against giant sentient starships. Regardless, he suddenly wanted to get moving, get himself healed up so he could get back out there and keep fighting.

The woman had a hell of a knack for speeches.

The rest of the crowd was starting to crowd closer, wanting hugs or pats on the back or just to be nearer to the famous Commander Shepard. Nathan wondered why Alliance control had deemed a public docking bay to be the best place for the _Normandy_. He decided it was time to do something before they got stuck here for the next few hours.

He leaned down, but raised his voice so the crowd would be able to hear. “Commander, we need to get to that meeting with the Council.” He placed a hand lightly on the small of her back and began to guide her through the crowd toward the security checkpoint, gently but firmly using his height and bulk to nudge people aside. She nodded and waved to the crowd in farewell and allowed herself to be escorted, understanding what he was trying to do.

He ignored the queue, figuring the C-Sec officers manning it would be happy to let them straight through if it meant dispersing the crowd. He was right – the one nearest the first security grid waved them through, then stepped in behind them and turned back, guarding their exit. Nathan looked over his shoulder as they went through the second checkpoint. The crowd didn’t seem inclined to follow, although some of them watched as they left, trying to get a last glimpse of Shepard.

“Good thinking, Briggs,” she told him as they walked over to the rapid transit terminal and hailed a cab. “Very diplomatic.”

“Thanks, Shepard,” he replied. He leant up against the wall as they waited for the cab to arrive, careful not to put any weight on his injured shoulder, digesting what had just happened. It had been surreal. “Though I thought the whole bodyguard gig was finished after we got off Earth.” She shrugged sheepishly. Now that she was away from the crowd, she seemed a little more self-conscious, though he doubted anyone who didn’t know her well would be able to tell. “So, what did that man say to you?” he asked, allowing his curiosity to get the better of him.

Her blue eyes lit up and her lips curved in a soft smile. It seemed that those few moments with the crowd of civilians had affected her just as much as it had affected them. His breath caught in his throat for a moment, and he covered it with a quick cough. She was beautiful. “He said thank you.”

Damn Kaidan.

 

* * *

 

Shepard left Udina’s office with a determined spring to her step. The Council weren’t going to help and although he wanted to – which was a surprise – Udina couldn’t do much on his own. She hadn’t ever really thought they would help, but she couldn’t visit the Citadel and _not_ speak to them. Despite that, it hadn’t all been a giant waste of time – the turian councillor had come to see her in private and asked her to rescue Primarch Fedorian from Menae, one of Palaven’s moons. Apparently the Primarch would be likely to agree to add turian ships to the fleet she was building, or at the very least, was willing to talk about it. It wasn’t much, but it was a sliver of hope.

The crowd of people she had spoken with earlier had buoyed her resolve just as much as she hoped she had buoyed theirs. The man who had hugged her in particular. She couldn’t describe the feeling that had come over her when he thanked her. No one had ever really done that before outside of scripted ceremonies and formal dinners. If she had to dissect it, she supposed it reminded her what she was fighting for. She had a clear goal now, a mission to complete on Menae. If she could secure turian ships for the intergalactic fleet, it would be a huge step toward raising that army Hackett wanted.

She made her way to the rapid transit depot and caught one of the driverless cabs to the Alliance Military offices. Once she had her requisitions sorted, she could head back to the ship and they could be on their way. No doubt the shuttle would take a bit longer to deliver, but she had changed her mind about waiting for it. They had another. They could pass back through and pick the new one up after Menae.

Speaking of Menae, she didn’t much like the idea of going into an op with a ground team full of nothing but weaponry specialists. Armoured and shielded opponents would be much more difficult to deal with without tech and biotics. Vega didn’t have any tech or biotic skills at all. Nathan had some tech skills but he had been upfront with the fact that they were not very good. She would have to ask him to work on them, but until then she needed to fill the empty spots in her crew.

She raised a finger to her ear. “EDI.”

“ _Yes, Shepard.”_

“I want you to send messages to the following people, asking if they will meet with me as soon as possible. Use the emergency contact methods we set up before they left. Miranda Lawson, Kasumi Goto, Legion, Tali’Zorah, Thane, Garrus Vakarian… and… Jack and Samara.”

“ _Done. Is there anything else I can assist with?”_

Shepard was endlessly grateful that EDI had been happy to act as a sort of personal assistant for her. She just hadn’t had the time to deal with things like messages and admin tasks since she had returned to the Normandy. She resolved to find some way to thank the AI. “Yes. Send messages to the remaining members of my old team too, but just ask them for status updates. They don’t have the skills I need, and I don’t want to make them feel obligated to join me this time. But I’d like to know how they’re going.”

“ _Of course. I will advise you of any replies. Shepard, you have received a reply to your earlier message to Dr Chakwas. She has agreed to meet with you at Huerta Memorial Hospital.”_

She and Nathan had already been to the hospital, where she had checked on Kaidan, quickly had her own minor injuries seen to, and left Nathan there to see a doctor about his shoulder and knee. She didn’t want to go by the hospital again. If she was honest, she hated the place. She hated all hospitals. As a marine, if you were in hospital it meant you had been hurt too badly for a combination of medi-gel and the ship’s doctor to patch you up. It never boded well. And besides, as soon as things were taken care of at Alliance HQ she wanted to head straight for Menae. “Please ask her if she could meet me at the Alliance offices instead.”

“ _Done. Commander, you have received a reply from Miranda Lawson. She has agreed to meet with you. She is currently on the Citadel. She has advised that she will contact you directly.”_

Shepard raised an eyebrow. “That was quick,” she commented.

_“I agree._ _You have also received a reply from Kasumi Goto. She too is located on the Citadel and will contact you directly.”_

“Huh. All right, then. Thank you EDI.”

“ _Logging you out, Shepard.”_

She had to marvel at her luck. The Citadel was a big place, of course, but it was still very lucky that two of the best operatives from her old team just happened to be here at the same time as she was, right when she needed them. She shrugged. She wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, although she did wonder what had brought them to the Citadel in the first place.

The cab pulled up outside Alliance HQ. She climbed out and spotted Nathan standing near the entrance. She had to stifle a grin. A few soldiers were milling about, but his tall frame stood out like a turian at a volus party. She met him at the door and they entered together. “Feeling better?” she asked, looking him over critically.

He was walking without a limp. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a cocky grin, rolling his shoulder in demonstration. “All patched up.”

“Good.” His good mood was infectious. She bumped him gently with a shoulder. “Let’s go get us some supplies.”

She headed for the reception counter and the startled-looking servicewoman who had just noticed her. The woman got up to salute, but Shepard waved her down and asked to speak to someone from Requisitions. The servicewoman ran off – literally scurrying away down the hall, leaving Shepard blinking in surprise. “Um,” she deadpanned.

“Be nice if the Reapers reacted to your presence like that,” Nathan muttered.

“It’d solve a lot of problems.”

It didn’t take long before Shepard and Nathan were seated in the office of the base’s chief procurement officer. The man was very laid back, and Shepard found herself grateful for that. There was only so much hero worship she could handle in one day.

He still seemed to realise who she was, however, and took a certain amount of glee in playing fast and loose with standard procedure on her behalf. He ‘diverted’ a new Kodiak UT-47A from its intended destination to the _Normandy;_ Shepard didn’t ask where it had come from. He scanned both she and Nathan with his omnitool to obtain their measurements and forwarded the data straight through to Alliance outfitters with instructions to bump them both to the top of the queue for new custom-made uniforms. The threat he made to the hesitant man on the other end of the comm went something along the lines of, ‘If Commander Shepard has to save the galaxy in her underwear I’ll make sure to tell them who was responsible!’ He also arranged for standard uniforms in various sizes to be delivered to the _Normandy_ for the rest of the crew, and bumped those up to the head of the queue as well.

Once he was finished with that, he moved on to armour. Although she wanted to get out of there quickly, Shepard took her time going over the specifications of her armour. The gear that kept her alive in the field was not something to cut corners on. The procurement officer seemed to understand that. He even insisted on purchasing some of the more specialised components from stores like Armax and Hahne-Kedar with his department’s discretionary fund. They spent a good hour on it, making sure everything would be perfect. He even agreed to arrange to have Nathan’s new standard Alliance armour upgraded with a couple of mods and painted in custom colours. Nathan seemed pretty happy about that. He was making out like a bandit for the sole reason that he happened to be here with her.

After all that, she sincerely thanked him and promised him a commendation to his superiors for his hard work. He snorted and told her not to waste her time with “shit like that”, and to come straight to him if she ever needed anything else to help her “fuck up those Reaper pricks”. She tossed him an amused salute as they left.

Next she spoke to Personnel, and found it was surprisingly easy to arrange for experienced people to join the _Normandy_ crew. The Alliance had an abundance of unassigned personnel, now that half the fleet had been destroyed and anyone who had been on leave was now turning up at Alliance offices demanding to be deployed. Shepard handed over the list of who was needed where on the ship, and the personnel officer had new orders out to replacement crewmembers within the hour. The only role they had been unable to fill was that of Executive Officer, but Shepard had an idea who she could tap for that, _if_ she agreed to come on board.

Finally she and Nathan were able to leave the Alliance base. They had been ashore for only three hours. Shepard was impressed. She had thought it would take much longer to get everything sorted. Of course, they would have to wait for the shuttle, uniforms and armour to be delivered, and the new crew members to board, but she had been assured that would be completed by the evening. She considered staying for the night and giving everyone a few hours of shore leave, but they didn’t have the time. As soon as the ship was fully stocked, they would head straight for Menae, travelling through the night cycle.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Chapter Thirteen**

As Shepard and Nathan exited the building, Shepard spotted a familiar shock of grey hair and a white scientist’s uniform off to one side. “Dr Chakwas,” she greeted her old friend with a smile.

The older woman was waiting on a bench outside, face upturned, enjoying the simulated sun of the Citadel. When she saw Shepard, she got to her feet and pulled the younger woman into an embrace. She planted a motherly kiss on her cheek, then held her back at arms’ length. “Shepard. You’re a sight for sore eyes. I was glad to hear they finally came to their senses and pardoned you.” Her tone turned accusatory. “You look thin. When was the last time you ate?”

Shepard shifted her weight to her other foot, ignoring the amused twitch of Nathan’s lips. “Karin, please,” she protested, feeling like a scolded child. “I’ve eaten.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure you have, sometime in the past twenty-four hours. Come on, then. I’m buying you lunch.”

Shepard opened her mouth to say that they had work to do, but closed it again as her stomach rumbled warningly. Hadn’t she just finished telling herself that she was all done on the Citadel and ready to head back to the ship early? There was no reason why she couldn’t take a few minutes for lunch with one of her oldest friends.

And a new one. “Dr Karin Chakwas, this is Lieutenant Nathan Briggs,” she introduced Nathan as they started walking.

Nathan reached around behind her to shake Chakwas’ hand. “It’s a pleasure, ma’am,” he greeted her politely.

“Likewise, young man,” Chakwas replied, studying him with interest.

“Nath—Lieutenant Briggs was my assigned personal guard while I was being held in Vancouver,” Shepard explained. “We managed to get off Earth together.”

Nathan nodded sagely. “Yeah, luckily I was there to save the Commander. Took out a few husks for her.”

Shepard threw him an amused look. “Hey, I helped. I ducked. You know, so I wasn’t in your way.”

Nathan winked at her, and right out of nowhere her stomach did little flip-flops. Startled, she quickly turned her attention to Chakwas.

Chakwas’ penetrating gaze moved from Nathan to Shepard and back again, eyebrow raised, lip quirked in amusement. With a sudden certainty, Shepard realised Chakwas had noticed her reaction. The doctor didn’t say anything, though; she was far too canny for that. “Well, I’d like to hear the _real_ story over lunch, if you would be so kind,” she said.

The three of them headed into the Presidium Commons and Chakwas guided them over to a small café overlooking the Citadel’s gardens. Once they were seated at a relatively secluded table and had ordered, Shepard told her the full story of their escape from Earth, with Nathan jumping in from time to time. By the end of it, their food had arrived and Chakwas had grown grim and silent despite Nathan’s attempts to lighten the story by making fun of his own fear of heights, among other things. “Hm. Well, you’ve gotten yourself out of some pretty nasty scrapes, my girl, but I think that one rates near the top of the list,” she commented.

Shepard nodded. She supposed that was true. She toyed with her burger, opening it up and picking out the slices of carrot. She had no idea what would compel someone to put carrot in a burger. “I know,” she replied. “That was just the beginning, though, Karin. We’re going to get into a lot worse before this war is over.”

“I think you’re right,” Chakwas agreed sadly. “You’re going to need me there to patch you up, you know.”

Shepard couldn’t help a grateful smile. She should have known she wouldn’t need to ask. Although, “Aren’t you a researcher these days?”

Chakwas shook her head. All traces of humour were absent when she spoke. “My research can wait. I belong with you out there, Shepard. I can’t fight like you can, but I’m a hell of a good doctor and I know your Cerberus modifications better than anyone else. I need to be there to make sure you stay in one piece.”

Shepard met the doctor’s steady gaze, feeling as though a solid, immoveable platform had just been placed under her feet. Ever since she had first set foot on the _Normandy_ SR-1, Dr Chakwas had been a constant. She could fix whatever injury Shepard had managed to sustain in the field, of course, but more than that, she seemed to be able to steer her in the right direction, too. When Shepard had just been revived after Cerberus had rebuilt her and shoved her, reeling, onto the SR-2, it had been Dr Chakwas’ who helped keep her sane.

She couldn’t put into words how grateful she was that the woman wanted to return to the _Normandy_ , so she didn’t try. Chakwas would know. She covered the doctor’s hand with one of her own. “Thank you, Karin. Welcome aboard,” she said.

Nathan had been sitting there quietly, eating his meal and allowing the two friends to talk. Now he spoke up. “So, Cerberus modifications huh? I’ve heard about some sort of bone weave they invented, it’s supposed to be really good. Is that what you’ve got, Commander?” he asked. He had fallen back into using formal addresses now that it wasn’t just the two of them.

Shepard abruptly remembered that Nathan couldn’t possibly know what had happened to her back then. Her resurrection and subsequent war on the Collectors had never been made public knowledge. The media had started to pick up on the fact that she wasn’t dead after her destruction of the Collector base, but the Alliance hadn’t explained her supposed death and two-year absence, which meant the news reports were all speculative. Most decided that she had been undercover in some capacity. None came even close to the reality.

As far as Nathan knew, she had been deep undercover for two years until she had reappeared and blown the Alpha Relay. Hell, he probably didn’t even know about the Collector base. She didn’t like the idea of him not knowing the truth. Despite his idiotic actions on Mars, she liked him. A lot. And more importantly, she trusted him.

“Yes, I have that mod, among other things,” she replied, choosing her words carefully. “Nathan, I… I died two and a half years ago.”

He glanced at Dr Chakwas. “Yeah, I remember your funeral. You seemed to get better a couple of years later though. Are you saying you’re Commander Shepard’s evil clone, then?” His flippant tone betrayed his confusion.

Shepard ignored the knee-jerk wisecrack and the feelings it evoked from those first few days after she had woken up, when she hadn’t been certain _what_ she was. “My ship was destroyed by a Collector vessel over the planet Alchera. I was spaced. My helmet’s air hose broke, and I died,” she explained calmly.

Nathan’s face drained of all colour and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, starting to look a little angry, as if he thought he might be the butt of a joke but couldn’t figure out what the joke was. “What?” He looked to Chakwas again, as if she could clear this up by virtue of her medical degree.

Chakwas placed a comforting hand on his arm. “When she didn’t come down in the last escape pod, none of us knew what to do. Joker was inconsolable. He blamed himself. Kaidan took command, but it was like he was walking around in a daze. None of us could fathom that after all we had been through, the impossible odds we had beaten, Commander Shepard would die an innocuous spacers’ death.”

Shepard had to lower her eyes as thoughts of her crew having to deal with losing her like that threatened to overwhelm her. She stared at her half-eaten hamburger and took a deep breath, fighting down memories. It was never pleasant for her to recall the events leading up to her death, either. She would probably dream about it again tonight. But it felt important to let Nathan know about it. Everyone else on her team knew.

Chakwas continued. “You said you remembered her funeral, yes?”

Nathan was frowning. “I remember. I was in the Terminus systems at the time. My squad and I… we took a moment to remember her life.” He looked at her, and his eyes were filled with confusion. She met his eyes with a little difficulty, hoping her sincerity would shine through and he would understand that she wasn’t lying to him or playing some sort of cruel joke.

Chakwas nodded. “After what seemed like a few short months of remembrance and tributes and the like – I don’t remember exactly – those ghoulish recruitment ads started to show up again. I couldn’t stand it. They were treating her like a… a product. I wanted to be out of Alliance space, back on a starship, where I didn’t have to see that every day. So when Cerberus told me about their plans to bring the Commander back, I joined up immediately.”

Shepard took up the story. “Liara – Dr T’Soni – located my body and handed it over to Cerberus—“

“Wait. Cerberus?” Nathan interjected. His jaw worked silently. “This is the same Cerberus we ran into on Mars? The same organisation turning their own people into husks?”

“Yes,” she confirmed reluctantly. “Liara tells me that she had a choice between Cerberus and the Collectors, so she chose Cerberus. She decided they were the lesser of two evils. She gave my body to Cerberus and they spent two years rebuilding me. They gave me upgrades. My bones are stronger, my muscles more powerful. I heal more quickly than an average human.”

“They… they brought you back to life? Resurrected you?” She nodded slowly. He looked away, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “And gave you upgrades.”

“Yes. I suppose it made sense, though I would have liked to have been consulted,” Shepard said lightly, though she was unable to hide the bitterness in her voice.

“What? So… you’re some kind of zombie super hero now?” Nathan fell back on humour again, but his eyes didn’t change and his voice was flat.

She shook her head, ignoring the zombie crack, although it cut a little close to home. “No. I can hit harder and run faster, but that’s about it. Some parts of me are completely synthetic. I have cybernetics holding my bones together. But if I get shot it’s still going to hurt, and I’ll still bleed out and die.” She shrugged. “It’s just harder for me to get hurt than it was before.”

He stared at her. “You’re so… nonchalant about this.”

“I found it difficult at first. I woke up, and two years had gone by. To me, it felt like I had died yesterday,” she explained, mind flitting back to the moment she had woken up in the Cerberus medbay, Miranda’s voice in her ear telling her to get up and put her armour on. She shook it away. “But I’ve had months to get used to the idea now. I suppose… I’m grateful. If it wasn’t for Cerberus, I would be dust and ashes on Alchera.” She shrugged.

“So what Kaidan said on Mars… he had a point.” Shepard felt a flash of anger at that, but she suppressed it. Nathan didn’t have the full story yet. Besides, it didn’t sound like he was precisely agreeing with Kaidan, more that he could now see where his accusations had come from. Nathan swallowed. “This is hard to take in.”

She couldn’t help a small, completely humourless laugh. “I know. It’s hard to believe. Hell, I’m living it and I barely believe it.” Shepard raised her burger to her lips but stopped. Her mouth was dry, and her stomach never reacted very well to thoughts of her death. She put it down again with a sigh. “I wanted you to know.”

“I… okay. Thanks.” Nathan trailed off, looking shell-shocked.

Shepard couldn’t blame him. She had been telling the truth, though, when she told him she was now grateful. She had her life back. It was a… priceless gift. Impossible. Unfathomable. And yet, it had happened, and she was glad.

They finished their meal in painful, awkard silence. Nathan ate with a frown permanently etched into his forehead, while Chakwas seemed to be equally thoughtful. Shepard left them to their thoughts and forced herself to finish her meal, though it had lost all taste to her. When they had all finished, they made their way back to the rapid transit stand and piled into a cab.

They had been gliding along for almost a full minute, still in silence, before a disembodied voice came from the unoccupied front seat next to Shepard. “Okay, I can’t do this anymore. You’re all so… sombre.”

Shepard jumped, reaching for a pistol that wasn’t there. Nathan had his omniblade out in a flash.

Kasumi Goto flickered into existence, powering down her cloak. She held her hands up in placation, amused grin on her lips. “Hey, hey, it’s me! So jumpy!”

“Kasumi!” Shepard leaned forward, glaring. “Are you insane?” She waved Nathan down. Neither of them were in a joking mood after their previous conversation.

The thief leaned back, crossing her legs elegantly, unconcerned. “I was _trying_ to have a bit of fun. I wanted to see how long I could sit here, cloaked, without you realising I was here. But you all look so serious! I thought a little scare might wake you up a bit.” Shepard shook her head in exasperation. Kasumi winked, then turned her attention to Chakwas. “Doctor, it’s good to see you again.”

Chakwas appeared only mildly annoyed. “And you, Kasumi. You look well. You must have stolen something particularly good.”

Kasumi covered her heart with her hand and feigned a hurt expression. “Doctor, you wound me! It was some very useful data, actually. But I’ll tell you about that later.” She shifted her gaze to Nathan, cheekily running her eyes up and down his body, lingering on certain… areas. “And who is this?” she asked appreciatively.

Shepard found herself bristling in annoyance at the way the thief was ogling Nathan. “Kasumi,” she warned her. “This is Lieutenant Nathan Briggs, one of my marines.”

He seemed bemused as he held his hand out to shake. Kasumi took it and held on for a little longer than was really necessary. “ _So_ pleased to meet you, Lieutenant. You’re one of Shepard’s men, then?” she asked suggestively.

To her horror, Shepard felt her cheeks heat up, just a little. Which made no sense, because of course Nathan was not one of her men in _that_ way! Or in any other way! Aside from being one of her soldiers, of course. She hoped no one had noticed her blush. “Kasumi,” she protested, a little too strongly. Wincing inwardly, she quickly changed the subject. “I asked you to meet me because I have a request.”

The thief had clearly noticed her reaction, if the borderline smug smile on her lips was anything to go by. “Do tell.”

“I need someone with your talents on my team.”

“You planning on conducting a heist or two, Shep? I suppose that’s _one_ way to fund a war.”

“I need your technical skills, Kasumi. Nathan here can barely throw an overload, and he’s the best tech I have.”

“It’s true,” Nathan agreed good-naturedly. “I prefer shooting things.”

Kasumi chuckled, then turned her gaze back to Shepard. She considered for a long moment, then shrugged and smiled. “Well, you did help me get Keiji’s greybox back. And I have nothing else to do. Sure, I’ll help you.”

No, that wasn’t good enough. Shepard grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward, locating her eyes beneath the heavy grey hood. “Kasumi, this is not a fun little side trip. I’m asking for your help to defeat the Reapers once and for all. I’m asking you to fight a _war_ with me. This is another suicide mission, only this time the odds are worse. You do not owe me anything. Don’t come out of obligation to me.”

To Shepard’s surprise, Kasumi neatly twisted out of her grip, took hold of her hand properly, and met her gaze with a steely glint in her eyes. The last time Shepard had seen Kasumi look like that, it had been as they were heading down the ramp into the Collector base. In a low voice, she replied, “Shep, the data I stole implicates the hanar ambassador in a plot to destroy the volus homeworld on behalf of the Reapers. I just came from turning it over to a Spectre. I want to help. That was the best way I could think of to do it. _You_ just gave me a better way.” She sat back, and her eyes were hidden behind her cowl again, lip twitching in her customary sardonic smile. “So I’m in.”

Shepard nodded, satisfied. “It’ll be good to have you back, Kasumi.”

“It’ll be good to be back, Shep.”

They pulled up at the docking bay and all piled out. Thankfully the crowd from earlier was gone. The area was still busy, but this time people seemed more concerned with their own business than with the fact that Commander Shepard was nearby. When they reached the docking bridge, however, two people stepped out of the shadows.

Shepard stopped, crossed her arms beneath her breasts and shifted her weight to one hip. “Hello Miranda. Did you bring any other friends? Old crew members have been jumping out at me all over the place today.”

Miranda mirrored her stance, lip quirking in amusement. “Shepard. It’s good to see you too.”

Shepard turned to the other person. “Zaeed. Funny seeing you here.”

“You want some extra goddamn firepower or not, Shepard?” the old mercenary demanded.

Shepard raised her eyebrows. “You want to join me? You got a death wish, old man?”

He snorted. “Those Reaper bastards are on Earth. I want to kick ‘em where it hurts. You’re good at finding where that is.”

Miranda’s expression seemed to agree. “Zaeed is here because I hired him for a little job of my own before I received your message. Cerberus is up to something. I’ve been trying to find out what that is.” She sighed. “And I’ve also been trying to stay ahead of their agents. I’m not one of the Illusive Man’s favourite people anymore. I needed… some help, and Zaeed was happy to oblige. For the right price, of course. Shepard, the Illusive Man can’t get to me easily aboard your ship, and I have a feeling that whatever Cerberus is doing will somehow end up tied in with this war. I want in too.”

Shepard shrugged. “All right, well, that was why I asked you to meet me in the first place. Welcome aboard.” Unlike Kasumi, to whom life often appeared to be a game, she knew that Miranda and Zaeed understood the consequences fully and didn’t need to be reminded. “So, no other crew members hiding around here?”

Miranda rolled her eyes. “There don’t appear to be, Commander.”

Shepard nodded. She grinned. “Good. Let’s get moving then. Now that you’re here, Miranda, I have a job for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Menae next time I promise! And things will be very different to the game. Thank you all for reading. I hope you’re enjoying the story!


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

When the _Normandy_ arrived over Menae Nathan was standing in the cockpit, watching over Joker’s shoulder. The roiling colours of FTL travel receded, replaced by the inky blackness of space and the scorched surface of Palaven hanging just overhead and behind its satellite moon Menae. The turian fleet swarmed around its homeworld. The sharp corners and angular lines of the turian ships were a stark contrast to the cloud of organically-shaped Reaper vessels interspersed among them. There were fewer Reapers, but watching turian ships regularly disappearing in flashes of fire and debris made it clear who had the upper hand.

“Damn,” Nathan murmured. Palaven was just as besieged as Earth.

“Yeah,” Joker said, all of the usual mirth gone from his tone. “Get your ass down to the shuttle, Briggs. I’m going to dip into atmosphere and bug out pretty damn quick. That new pilot, whatever his name is, will need to be ready in time.”

“Right.” Nathan hurried down to the shuttle bay, where the ground team was just boarding the new Kodiak. He followed, leaping up into the shuttle behind them. He caught a quick glimpse of the new shuttle pilot as he took his seat beside Kasumi Goto, across from Miranda Lawson. He hadn’t had a chance to speak to Cortez yet, nor Kasumi or Miranda, but then he hadn’t met many of the _Normandy’s_ other crew members either. He supposed he would have a chance to speak to Miranda regularly in future, seeing as how she was now his direct superior officer. Shepard had announced that the woman had accepted a field commission to the rank of Staff Lieutenant and would be acting as the _Normandy’s_ XO.

He wasn’t sure what to make of that, but after accompanying Shepard to the Alliance personnel office he knew executive officers were in short supply. No Alliance officer on board the Normandy at the moment had the rank to fill the role, aside from Dr Chakwas, and he assumed Shepard had concluded that none had the necessary skills to be promoted into it either. He hoped Miranda did. He added it to the growing mental list of things to ask Shepard about later. He wasn’t particularly worried about being overlooked himself; while he _technically_ had the ability to take on the position _,_ in practice he was still feeling like a fish out of water and knew he would probably do a terrible job at it.

Shepard was sitting across from him, looking just like she always did: calm, focussed, determined. She had been discussing something with Miranda, but when he arrived she turned her gaze on him. When he met that gaze, though, he felt like something had changed. Not with her, but with him.

Ever since she had told him about her death and subsequent resurrection he had been trying to find a way to settle it in his mind. It was suddenly almost like there were two Shepards: the Shepard he knew, the friendly, clumsy, funny woman who could make him smile with a single look in his direction, and the _other_ Shepard, the one he was just starting to learn about, the one sitting across from him now. The legendary hero who had survived a thresher maw attack that had killed her entire squad, become the first human Spectre, saved the galaxy from a geth invasion, then died and was brought back to life. God, it sounded like the ridiculous plot of a B-grade movie, but it was blindingly real.

He had to reluctantly admit that the things she had been through scared the hell out of him. The fact that she was a galactic hero intimidated the hell out of him. The fact that she had _died_ freaked him _right_ out. But the thing that scared him the most? He was scared that he was scared of all that.

How ridiculous was that? He was scared about the fact that he was intimidated by the Great Commander Shepard. If it would ever be okay to be intimidated by someone, Commander Shepard was that person. So why was he so worried about it?

She gave him a reproachful look, no doubt related to his late arrival, but didn’t say anything. He shook away his morose thoughts and gave her an apologetic one in return. As the shuttle began to lift off she got up to speak to the pilot, grabbing one of the overhead straps for balance.

His stomach was twisting in anticipation of the fight ahead. Looking for something to take his mind off his nerves, Nathan found his eyes drawn to Shepard in her new armour. He had been surprised to learn that she favoured the heavier kind. It was some of the best work he had ever seen, put together with impressive craftsmanship. Pieces from Alliance standard stock were combined seamlessly with advanced components from the best armour manufacturers in the galaxy. He saw auxiliary shield power cells, extra kinetic padding, and even what looked like an onboard targeting VI’s housing attached to the belt. The hardsuit was coloured a deep, matte black with blood-red piping snaking sparingly over the greaves and gauntlets. The piping matched the brilliant red stripe decorating her armoured right arm and the detail on the N7 insignia on her right chest.

It was impressive, but it was the woman herself who made the armour. Her auburn hair was tied securely back in a regulation bun and her blue eyes gleamed, contrasting sharply with the black of the ceramic plating. His eyes followed every inch of that plating, drinking in the swell of her breasts, the smooth curve of her hips, the obvious strength in her thighs. In a flash he was imagining throwing her up against the wall of the shuttle, pushing a knee between those thighs and…

_Woah._ He blinked, searching quickly for something else to look at. Anything. Indicator lights above the hatch. Perfect.

_Fuck_. And there was his problem. He was incredibly attracted to her. The sight of her lithe curves lined by the hard ceramic of her armour did very uncomfortable but not entirely unpleasant things to his insides.

She was his friend, of course, and he valued that, but he didn’t delude himself into thinking he didn’t want more. The more he learned about what she had been through, though, what made her the legendary Commander Shepard, the more certain he became that she was completely out of his reach. That scared him just as much as the whole hero thing did.

“Right,” Shepard began, turning back around to face her team. She didn’t seem to notice anything off about him, thankfully. He shook the last of his distraction away. She was his commanding officer and they were about to head into a goddamn warzone. He needed to focus. “We’re going to be coming in hot. General Corinthus is in charge down there; he’s pinned down, we need to get to him. LZ is overrun. Cortez is going to clear us a path, we’ll mop up the rest. We’ll try and take some of the pressure off the turian defenders at the same time. Briggs and I are on point. Kasumi, Miranda, support. Follow my lead. Got it?”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Nathan responded crisply.

Miranda replied with a simple, “Yes, Commander.”

Kasumi clapped her hands in glee. “Oh, I’ve _missed_ you, Shep!” she said fervently. Shepard threw her an exasperated look.

Nathan didn’t quite know what to make of the two women. Neither had a military background as far as he knew, but both fairly oozed capability and power. Miranda was more overt, with her direct style and openly figure-hugging combat suit – although the suit itself was deceptive, designed as it was to accentuate distracting curves while being made of a carbon-fibre mesh that rivalled the absorption capabilities of Shepard’s heavy armour.

Kasumi’s strength, on the other hand, was very subtle but there when you were looking for it. Her own suit was just as skin-tight but sported a deep cowl and an almost demure design that nevertheless did nothing to disguise the lean power in her form. The trust Shepard put in the two women was clear. Nathan was looking forward to seeing them fight.

His own armour was the heaviest of the four of them. Traditional Alliance heavy armour with an added bio-feedback governance module and auxiliary shield generators, painted gunmetal grey with the Alliance symbol in white on his upper right chest. He felt energised being back in custom-built armour again, with a full set of guns secured to his back, ready to take on whatever the Reapers could throw at him.

The nerves in the pit of his stomach morphed into a thrill of excitement. He still found it hard believe he was actually on _Commander Shepard’s_ ground team.

The Kodiak tilted as they swooped in over the battlefield below. An overhead monitor angled toward the passenger compartment displayed a view of the landing zone captured by the external camera. Cortez opened up with the Kodiak’s mass accelerator cannons, their booming echoing through the deck of the shuttle. On the monitor Nathan could see dozens of husks scatter away from the blasts, as well as some of the other monstrous constructs he remembered from the escape from Earth.

Shepard reached up and tapped the monitor with one finger, pointing out each different type of monster they would be fighting. “I received some info on Reaper ground troops from Intelligence last night. Marauder, husk, cannibal… brute. Marauders are shielded, take them out from range. Husks are squishy little bastards but hit hard, don’t let them swarm you. Cannibals get some sort of battle frenzy from eating their dead friends, but otherwise they’re cannon fodder. If they’re grouped we take them all out at once. Brutes… stay the fuck away from brutes, they hit _hard_. They’re armoured and take a lot of damage. Focus your fire on them. Get ready.”

Nathan got to his feet and grabbed an overhead strap, Kasumi and Miranda following suit. Kasumi raised her arms over her head, stretching, and keyed up her omnitool, while Miranda drew her sub-machine gun and flicked the safety off, blue arcs of biotic power flickering along her arm.

The shuttle came in hard and fast, settling to the ground with a thump. Shepard already had the door halfway open. She leaped out, rifle raised and up in firing position. Nathan followed, boots crunching onto the surface as he ran forward in her wake. Eerie groans and yells echoed across the otherwise silent landscape of the moon.

He drew his assault rifle and flicked it over to incendiary rounds, sighting on a nearby husk and firing as he ran. He scored a lucky headshot but it just jerked and kept coming. Remembering Shepard’s advice from back on Earth he raked a stream of bullets down its torso and it fell in a pool of black blood. Shepard’s rifle echoed from beside him in staccato bursts.

They advanced toward a low rocky ridge, meagre cover in a sparse environment. Miranda moved into cover at his four o’clock, throwing a warp into the middle of a group of husks. They were wreathed in violet energies as their bodies were contorted by the warp field, writhing and jerking. He took them out one by one, incendiary rounds making short work of the weak flesh. He suppressed a shudder, remembering what it had been like to punch one of them on Earth and feel the flesh caving in around his hand.

Taking his cue from Miranda, he charged an overload and flung it at a husk, wanting to see what effect it would have. The thing staggered, as if it had been mildly shocked by the overload, then kept running toward them. _Okay, only mildly useful._ He finished it off with his rifle and immediately sighted on another one, armour cushioning his shoulder from the rifle’s heavy kickback as it fired.

“Briggs,” came Shepard’s steady voice through his in-ear comm. He glanced over at her with one eye. “Overload, eleven.”

Startled, he tried to pick out what she wanted him to overload. _Shit shit shit where is…_ He spotted it finally, sighting along her eleven o’clock; a marauder sticking its fringed head out from cover. He queued up another overload, fumbling a little with his omnitool and his rifle, and tossed it at the marauder. It fizzled out on the rock the marauder was using for cover as the creature ducked down again. He winced. _Too slow._

He should have been ready for her call, but at the same time he knew he couldn’t dwell on it with bullets flying over his head and eerie groans filling his ears. Miranda had been covering their flank with her SMG; he turned back and picked up the slack, giving her the chance to throw out another warp. The group of husks was close this time, only about ten metres away. He rose up on his haunches, preparing to sprint out and finish them off from melee range.

“Briggs, cover,” Shepard’s voice was quick, before he had time to move. He quickly ducked back down. Her tone didn’t change, but he had the distinct sense he had just been told off for doing something wrong. “Frag out.”

A frag grenade sailed over his head to land at the feet of the warped husks. It exploded with a crack, blasting dirt and pieces of husk over their heads. Directly behind them Nathan spotted a pair of marauders ensconced behind cover and firing in their direction. Shepard must have seen them and knew they would be on him if he had left cover. He swore to himself and threw an overload at one of them, shorting out its shields. He finished it off with a couple of shots from his rifle.

“Miranda, overload,” Shepard ordered. The same marauder Nathan had missed before stumbled back, shaking as Miranda’s heavier overload blanketed it in electricity, bringing down its shields. “Kasumi, go get it.”

The thief disappeared, then reappeared a second later driving what looked like a _sword_ into the marauder’s chest and crowing, “Ha-ha!” Nathan blinked. While she was there, she carved through a pair of cannibals nearby. A second later she was gone again, and back in her spot at Shepard’s eight. Quick, neat and smooth.

He was starting to feel a little out of his depth.

Pushing that demoralising thought aside, he grimly kept up his rate of fire, trying to focus on cleaning up those troops that had already been damaged by a warp or a grenade. He listened for Shepard’s calls but to his dismay only managed to hit with maybe two thirds of the overloads she asked for, while Kasumi and Miranda were fast and on target each time. He wasn’t sure why she kept using his overloads, but she did.

A group of three cannibals lumbered down into their field of fire and Nathan remembered what Shepard had said about making sure they all died at once. “Briggs, overload,” she ordered. Determined, he glanced at her, saw she was looking at the cannibals, and tossed out the overload all within the space of a quick second. He scored a direct hit on the cannibal in the middle. _Yes._ “Miranda, warp. Detonate them.”

The warp arced out, and hit the same cannibal neatly in the chest. The swirling dark matter spread to either side, and the overload detonated, tearing the cannibal in the centre apart. The explosion knocked the other two off their feet and fire from Shepard’s rifle finished them off. Nathan allowed himself a quick, satisfied grin as he looked around, noticing the flood of troops had died down. Kasumi spotted his grin and winked at him from beneath her hood.

He gave himself a quick moment to take a breath. First wave down. He was still standing. His team was still standing.

He wasn’t used to this sort of small group combat. His old squad had been much larger, and he had been used to leading from the middle, not taking point. He had a couple of team members who were much better at that. It forced him to make decisions in a split second that he otherwise would have made in four or five. Shepard was there in the commanding role, of course, but there was a difference between consciously following her orders and constantly relying on her to tell him what to do. He had to adjust to the new situation, and fast, or he would become a liability rather than an asset.

Shepard vaulted over her cover and headed for the tall outcropping leading up into the turian outpost in a low run. Nathan followed, rifle held at low ready, Miranda slightly behind and to his right. Kasumi mirrored her on Shepard’s left. He leaned up against the ledge, crouching slightly to keep his nose below ground level, and scanned the open field ahead of them.

Not good.

“Well, it’s certainly crowded up there,” Miranda commented quietly.

The combination of their ground assault and Cortez’s opening salvo hadn’t reduced the pack as much as he thought it had. He spotted brutes – three of them – as well as a spread of at least a hundred marauders, cannibals and husks. They were currently occupied with harassing the turian base camp, but weren’t taking significant losses. On a positive note, neither were the turians. They had hunkered down in their prefab units and fortified their position, and seemed to be holding their own. That couldn’t possibly last, however, not with this many Reaper troops waiting to swarm. They would have to do something to take the pressure off the turians, but no way could they take out all of those Reaper troops with just the four of them.

Shepard holstered her assault rifle and started pulling herself up the rock wall. Clearly she had other ideas. “Get back to cover,” she ordered.

Nathan reversed his course and, along with Kasumi and Miranda, resumed cover behind the low outcropping. “What’s she up to?” he wondered aloud.

Kasumi bumped him with her elbow. “Something crazy, I hope,” she said gleefully.

“Shepard doesn’t do crazy,” Miranda argued. “She’ll have a plan.”

Nathan glanced at her. “’Doesn’t do crazy’? Remind me to tell you some time about how we got off Earth.”

Shepard had climbed to the top of the ledge now and was crouching, braced on one knee. She had pulled out another weapon. Nathan couldn’t see what it was from here but it was a good deal bigger than a rifle. It had to be a heavy weapon of some sort. Missile launcher?

The Reaper troops had noticed her and were heading towards her, moans increasing in volume as they found a new target. Nathan wondered if they were swarming her now because they recognised her, like they had on Earth. She paid them no attention, quickly and methodically firing off a four-round burst in a wedge in front of her, absorbing the kickback from the weapon with her armoured shoulder. _Yep, missile launcher_.

Four missiles arced out over the heads of the constructs. Without waiting for them to land, Shepard tucked the missile launcher up onto the back of her armour again and _jumped_ off the ledge. She hit the ground, rolled, and the missiles detonated.

The ground shook, and up on the ledge gouts of dirt and gravel fountained up into the air. As Shepard got to her feet and sprinted back towards them, dazed Reaper constructs began dropping and falling from the ledge behind her.

Nathan popped a thermal clip and started to lay down covering fire. Many of the constructs went down quickly, having been injured in the missile blasts, but some seemed relatively unhurt and keen to catch up to Shepard. He worked with Miranda and Kasumi to keep them back as shots pinged off Shepard’s enhanced shields. He and Miranda were starting to get into a rhythm. Miranda would throw out an overload and he would burst her target down with rifle fire, or he would be the one to overload and she would finish it off with a warp detonation. They worked well together.

Shepard hurdled into cover just as her shields dissipated. She hunkered down, letting them recharge. Nathan noted that she was barely even breathing heavily after a seventy metre sprint in full heavy armour. She clearly hadn’t been exaggerating about her Cerberus upgrades.

Shields fully charged again, she popped back up and started firing, calling for warps, overloads and Kasumi’s shadow strike at a cracking rate as the Reaper forces converged on their position. Nathan stepped it up, forcing his focus to a narrow kill zone around and before him. He tossed out overload after overload, alternating with Kasumi so Miranda would be free to use her warp to detonate where she could. Shepard was getting insanely precise kills, one after the other, economical three-round bursts from her assault rifle sending gobs of cannibal flesh flying from all the way back at the ledge seventy metres away. She never seemed to miss, and her rate of fire was faster than anything he had ever seen before. She had been good on Earth, but now she was amazing. Any rustiness she might have claimed to be feeling was clearly long gone.

Nathan was sneaking another glance at Shepard when he spotted the brute leaping off the ledge and crouching to charge. There was no way their meagre cover would stand up to that. “Look out!” he yelled, diving off to the side as the monstrous thing stampeded towards them, eating up the seventy metre stretch in bare seconds.

He hit the dirt hard, armour crunching under his shoulder as the brute crashed into the low rock, all but disintegrating their cover. Miranda had nimbly scrambled away and was still on her feet, but the charge had angled more towards Shepard and Kasumi and they hadn’t had such luck. Kasumi had also hit the dirt, cowl ripped off and caught beneath her head, but she was already rolling over, pistol out and ready to fire.

Shepard had spun and dive-rolled back from cover, but hadn’t gained much distance. Nathan managed to squeeze off a quick burst with incendiary rounds before the brute roared and charged again, directly at Shepard this time. To his horror, she stood her ground.

At the last second, she dove under its clawed hands as they reached for her small frame, tumbling past and rising smoothly to her feet. “Hit it,” she ordered, raising her own rifle and unleashing a salvo of incendiary rounds at its back. Nathan followed suit, but the brute quickly regained awareness and swung around, shrugging the hail of slugs off as though they were a light rain and bearing down on Shepard again.

Again she waited, and again at the last second she leaped aside. “Keep everything else off me,” she yelled above the sound of gunfire, and Nathan tore his eyes off her to find Miranda and Kasumi already hard-pressed to hold back a group of marauders that had managed to creep up on them. The two women were darting around, dodging and rolling to compensate for the lack of cover.

He powered up his extra shields and ran forward, trying to draw their fire. Kasumi and Miranda moved to put his more powerful shields between them and the marauders. He threw an overload at the nearest one and burst it down, then stalked toward them quickly, maintaining his rate of fire to keep them off balance. His shields wouldn’t hold for much longer, even reinforced as they were, but he shouldn’t need them to. He saw an overload go off on another one and sprinted for it, releasing his omniblade as he ran. He caught it before it could compensate for the disorientation of the overload and gutted it up close with the orange blade. Black blood splattered over his armour as the marauder spasmed and fell, a leaking hole in its abdomen. Nathan spun to the other one, but Kasumi and Miranda had already finished it off. For the moment, they were clear.

His eyes darted back to Shepard, who was yanking her own omniblade out of the dead brute’s back and powering it down. Blood covered one side of her face and ran down her arm, blurring the N7 stripe, but she didn’t appear to be favouring the arm in a way that would indicate she had been injured. He felt a rush of relief. “Briggs, check out what’s left,” she ordered, nodding towards the ledge that lead up to the turian base camp.

“Aye aye, ma’am,” he replied, jogging over the mangled remains of the Reaper forces they had destroyed. Mentally he tried to wrap his head around the aftermath as he ran. There had to be more than fifty dead constructs here, all decimated by a four-person squad. His old twelve-soldier squad would have been hard-pressed to take this many out, but then, after seeing them in action he knew Kasumi and Miranda would be worth at least three ordinary soldiers each. And Shepard?

The woman was a force of nature. One moment she was calmly sniping from cover with what had to be close to one hundred percent accuracy, the next she was retracting her omniblade and wiping the blood from her face after eviscerating a brute solo _._ In heavy armour, with three guns and a missile launcher on her back. And throughout it all, she knew exactly what was happening on the battlefield and how best to direct her squad to destroy the enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible.

It was all starting to fit together now. The stories were all true. Nothing had been exaggerated. She really was _that good_. Just hearing her steady voice over the comm and seeing that bright N7 stripe, knowing she was there overseeing the battle and keeping them all safe made him more confident and more tightly focussed. He felt like he could do anything with Commander Shepard as his CO.

He pressed himself up against the ledge and looked out over the open field leading to the turian camp. What few troops remained had been cleaned up by the turians, including the other two brutes. “Looks clear, ma’am,” he reported over the comm.

She ran up beside him and set her foot into a crack in the rock so she could hoist herself up high enough to see. “Yep, let’s go,” she confirmed. Kasumi and Miranda followed and they all mounted the rocky shelf, guns up and ready as soon as they reached the top. The turians spotted them and one of them waved. Shepard waved back and started towards them.

Nathan turned to check their six as they headed toward the turian camp, and stopped in his tracks. He felt all the blood drain from his face. All his exulting thoughts suddenly seemed silly and pointless.

His voice was hoarse as he said, “Shepard… we’re fucked.”

 

* * *

 

Shepard spun on her heel. She saw immediately what Nathan was talking about.

A Reaper destroyer was swiftly, silently, coming in to land not more than a couple hundred metres away. Almost close enough to cast a shadow over them.

_Holy fuck._

In a split second she considered her options.

They could run the fuck away to either side, spread out, risk the rocky, mountainous terrain and try to hide.

Bad idea. The plasma beam would obliterate any cover they found within seconds.

They could run the fuck away in the direction of the turian base camp.

Another bad idea. It was the only solid target within the theoretical range of the Reaper. It would be gone in seconds.

They could run the fuck _toward_ the Reaper.

That was the _worst_ idea. They would be sitting ducks. They would be dead in seconds.

They were fucked.

She wasn’t going to just stand there and wait to die though, no matter how futile running might be. “ _Move,”_ she yelled, darting away from her previous position. Her team scattered.

She watched over her shoulder as she ran, helpless fury rising in her chest, as the glowing red eye in the middle of the Reaper’s superstructure irised open. Plasma gathered, coalesced and lanced out…

…over their heads, ripping through a turian prefab building like it was paper. Pieces of the building and the crates of supplies that had been stored within it exploded out into the rest of the camp while turians threw themselves into cover.

It had _only_ caught that one building. And the turians had been able to duck out of the way.

Shepard stopped running, a triumphant grin spreading across her lips.

“It’s weaker than the capital ships,” she called over the sound of the Reaper destroyer’s klaxon. “Its weapon is smaller. We can’t outrun it but we can sure as hell outmanoeuvre it. Stay spread out and dance, people!”

The next beam hit the edge of the shelf they had just climbed over and roared up the ground towards them. Shepard dove, certain she could feel the searing heat at her back even through her armour. She searched around for some sort of extended cover, but knew it would be a bad idea to hide. If she couldn’t see the beam, she couldn’t get out of the way, and none of this rock would stop a high-powered plasma beam. It was a lot smaller than a Reaper capital ship’s weapon but it had still just taken out a small building.

She tapped her earpiece. “Joker! You seeing this?” she called, bouncing on her toes a little as she waited for the next attack. Thankfully the beam seemed to take a little while to recharge.

“ _Hold on, Commander, I’m coming in to try and distract it!”_

Fuck, she didn’t like that idea, but if he hadn’t already been doing it she would still have suggested it herself. There was no way Cortez could get in to pick them up with the Reaper just waiting for a nice big stationary target like a landing shuttle to appear. But Joker could fly circles around giant ships with big laser beams; he had practiced enough with the Collectors. Maybe with him distracting it in the _Normandy_ … “Cortez, can you find somewhere within running distance to land?”

“ _It’ll be dicey, ma’am,”_ Cortez replied, and she heard the waver in his voice. He didn’t think he could do it, but he would try anyway.

Another plasma beam lanced out, scoring the ground right in the middle of their little group. Briggs was closest, and moved too slowly. He was thrown to the ground and covered in dirt kicked up by the beam. If it had been a metre to the left… She swore to herself. That had been way too close. The man was too damn big and slow. So far he had managed to barely avoid two beams but she wouldn’t put money on a third.

She sprinted over to him and hauled him to his feet, keeping a firm grip on his arm. “Are you trying to get yourself killed, Lieutenant?” she shouted into his face. “Fucking pay attention!”

His eyes widened as he yelled, “Ma’am! No, ma’am!” in reply. Good, he needed to be on edge.

Another beam hit over their heads and scored the ground into the turian camp, giving them a momentary reprieve. The turians had scattered, following their lead and dancing around the deadly beam. She hoped none had been caught. Shepard kept a bruising grip on Nathan’s arm, knowing he wouldn’t feel it through his armour, and searched the sky for the _Normandy_.

Right on cue, a brilliant white and blue hull flashed across the Reaper’s field of vision, Thanix cannon raking ineffectually across its flanks. The destroyer didn’t seem to notice, unleashing another pillar of plasma on the ground team. It seemed to consider them a higher priority target than the turian camp. Shepard didn’t much like the implications of that. The Collectors had often targeted her personally. She assumed that had been at Harbinger’s direction. Was this destroyer doing the same thing?

As the beam hit ground she darted to the side, yanking on Nathan’s arm and sending them both tumbling out of the way. “Fuck sake, Shepard—“ he grumbled, heaving himself to his feet.

She glared at him, grabbing his arm again. “Shut it, Lieutenant,” she warned, eyes on the sky again. If there was a chance he wouldn’t be able to get out of the way in time by himself, she would make sure that he did. She didn’t give a shit if his dignity was bruised along the way.

The _Normandy_ came around for another pass, trying for the legs this time, but again, it didn’t seem to bother the Reaper. This time the beam scored a wide gouge across the dirt where Kasumi was running, sending her skidding to a halt and darting back in the other direction. The nimble thief made it look like art.

“Shepard!” Miranda suddenly gasped over the comm. “Remember the human Reaper?”

“Yeah, it was lots of fun. This is not the time for nostalgia, Miranda,” Shepard growled as the _Normandy_ made another useless pass.

“ _No,_ Shepard, remember its weaknesses?” Miranda insisted.

“This thing doesn’t have feeding tubes—“ Shepard stopped, realisation dawning. She clapped a hand to her ear. “Joker! Go for the weapons port when it opens!”

She barely heard a double-click over the comm in confirmation – Joker must have been too busy concentrating on flying to talk – as another stream of plasma hit the ground right in front of them. She shoved Nathan hard to the side and crashed into him, armour grating with the impact. He twisted as he fell and landed flat on his back. She rebounded off him with a _thunk_ , elbow slamming into the ground. She sucked in a sharp breath. Her armour absorbed the impact to her elbow but couldn’t compensate for the wrench of her shoulder. They both narrowly missed the beam. _Better to be close for two than too late for one._ She hauled herself to her feet, snatching Nathan’s arm again and pulling him with her, eyes glued to the sky.

Joker would have to wait for it to fire again, which meant they would have to dodge again, she thought, balancing on the balls of her feet. There was no guarantee this would work. There was no guarantee he would even hit it – although with Joker flying and EDI assisting with targeting there was a much better chance than she would otherwise have given it. She glanced at Miranda and Kasumi. Both were on their feet, staring up at the Reaper, ready to move just as she was.

The weapons port irised open and glowed with heat. From the corner of her eye Shepard caught a glimpse of the _Normandy_ as fire from Palaven reflected off its hull, roaring through the atmosphere over their heads. Joker was angling for a frontal approach, trying to give EDI the best chance of hitting the port.

The plasma cannon fired, and the _Normandy_ opened up with the thanix. Shepard couldn’t watch it; the plasma beam had hit ground right near Miranda. Miranda dived, skidding across the dirt, then rolled neatly to her feet. Perfect, as always.

Shepard had a single moment to glance up and see the molten gold slug from the Thanix cannon explode as it hit the Reaper’s weapons port dead centre. She squinted as fire blossomed out from the impact, shaking the Reaper and sending it crashing to its knees. The crimson light faded, and the Reaper collapsed, ground shuddering as it hit.

_Yes._ Beside her, Nathan whooped in triumph. Shepard let out a breath and grinned as she tapped her ear, releasing Nathan’s arm. “Good work, EDI, Joker. Cortez, get in here and pick us up before that thing recovers.”

“Holy shit!” Nathan was breathing giddily. “Holy _shit._ ”

Miranda and Kasumi jogged over. “I knew I’d get to see some excitement with you, Shep,” Kasumi said happily.

“I think you owe this one to Miranda,” Shepard corrected her.

Miranda brushed her hair back out of her face, picking out a clump of dirt. “It was only logical to assume Reapers would all have similar weak points.”

“ _Miranda,”_ Shepard chided. “Take the compliment, XO. Good thinking.”

Miranda shrugged, but allowed a small pleased smile to touch her lips. “Thank you, Shepard.”

Nathan was standing still, hands on hips, shaking his head. He had been staring at the downed Reaper in awe, an excited grin on his face, but now he looked over and met her eyes. “I just—I don’t—Is this how a normal mission usually goes for you, Shepard?” he finally asked.

She felt her lips twist in a wry smile. “Pretty much,” she replied, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll get used to it.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Somehow I doubt that. Wait—Miranda said… You’ve fought a Reaper _on foot_ before? And _won?”_

“She has,” Miranda confirmed, with a tiny hint of pride. Shepard threw her a look of exasperation. That hint of pride had more to do with Miranda’s satisfaction with her own accomplishment of bringing Shepard back to life than anything Shepard herself did.

“Twice,” Kasumi added. Nathan raised his eyebrows.

Twice? Oh. Sovereign too. “That doesn’t really count,” she argued as the shuttle swung into view overhead and lowered to the ground. “Joker and the fleet took Sovereign out.” She eyed the motionless Reaper. It didn’t move, but she didn’t trust for a second that it had been completely disabled. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” She jogged over to the shuttle and waited while her team boarded. She glanced over at the turian base camp and saw they were bugging out too. Satisfied, she jumped in, slapping the sensor to close the hatch behind her.

Once they were all seated, Nathan spoke up again from beside her. “Sovereign? Wasn’t that a geth ship?” he asked.

Miranda snorted. “Of course not. It was a Reaper.”

Shepard tuned them out as Miranda and Kasumi explained the battle for the Citadel and the full story of their fight against the Collectors to an incredulous Nathan. She had lived it; she didn’t need to hear it again. There was still work to do. She needed to find out what had happened to the turian Primarch. She tapped her earpiece and called for EDI.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Chapter Fifteen**

As soon as the shuttle touched down Shepard swung herself out and headed for the bridge, glad to escape the history lesson Miranda and Kasumi were giving Nathan. Miranda in particular tended to talk up Shepard’s role in events a little more than necessary, which made it decidedly uncomfortable for Shepard to listen to. Besides, the three of them seemed to be getting along well, which was good to see, so she wanted to leave them to their own devices a bit without their CO hovering around. She had wanted to show Nathan around the ship a bit more, take him to meet people, but she just hadn’t had the chance, and she could tell he had been feeling out of place. Hopefully getting to know Miranda and Kasumi would help with that.

She stopped by the armoury to clean the blood off her face and armour before she entered the main crew areas. Everyone aboard the ship knew what the ground team was doing when they went ashore, but there was no reason to confront them with gore up close. None of them were marines.

She headed for the elevator and the CIC, raising a finger to her ear as she walked. “EDI, any word from General Corinthus?”

EDI responded into her earpiece rather than the overhead speakers. “ _Yes, Shepard. He is uninjured, and he has located the new turian Primarch, General Victus. He has provided me with the coordinates of Victus’ location.”_

On the shuttle Shepard had spoken with Corinthus and discovered Primarch Fedorian’s ship had been destroyed and all aboard killed. The general had promised to find out who the new Primarch was and get back to her. “Hold on to those for the moment. Is it possible for you to patch me through to Victus?” Arriving on the CIC floor, Shepard crossed the CIC and jogged up the stairs leading to the cockpit.

“ _Yes. Would you like me to do so?”_

“One moment, EDI.” The cockpit door slid open, revealing Joker in his usual spot in the pilot’s couch. As she entered he craned his neck to see her without removing his hands from the controls. The _Normandy_ was operating under full stealth and so far had managed to avoid any Reaper attention. If the controls had been physical, she knew he would have had a death grip on them. “Joker, how are we doing?” she asked, resting a hand on the back of his seat.

“So far we’re sweet, Commander,” he replied, voice betraying his tension. “But I wouldn’t bet on our stealth systems holding up against detection by Reapers if they decide they really want to look for us. The Collectors could see right through them.”

“We won’t be here much longer,” she reassured him. “Joker… that was some fine flying down there. Good job.”

He tossed her a quick, cocky grin. “It’s what I do, Commander.”

She dropped down into the co-pilot’s chair and powered up one of the idle monitors. “EDI, connect me to Primarch Victus.”

After a minute or so the image of an older turian with distinct white clan markings appeared on the monitor. She straightened, suddenly wishing she had taken a moment to check her hair as well as remove the blood and guts from her armour. “Primarch, thank you for speaking with me.”

“ _Commander Shepard.”_ His voice was an even growl somewhat reminiscent of her old friend Garrus, she noted wistfully. “ _It is an honour to meet you.”_

She shook her head. “The honour is all mine, Primarch. Are you safe?”

“ _For the moment. That was an impressive display earlier, Commander. Destroying that Reaper.”_

Shepard had been certain beyond all doubt that the Reaper would be up and on them again before they could make it back to the _Normandy_ , but she was overwhelmingly glad to be proven wrong. It had instead lain silent and abandoned on the dusty surface of Menae until the turians gathered enough confidence to approach. They now swarmed it, trying to hurriedly glean as much knowledge as possible from its inert form. She still worried it would get up again but that seemed less and less likely as time went on.

“Thank you, sir. My pilot did an excellent job,” she replied. She pretended not to notice Joker’s unashamedly satisfied expression. “The destruction of that Reaper is what I wanted to talk to you about. As you may be aware, I have been given ambassadorial privileges for the Alliance. In that capacity I would like to invite you aboard the _Normandy_ for further discussions.” The formal words felt awkward leaving her mouth, and she knew they probably sounded awkward too. _That’s what you get for ordering a soldier to pretend to be a diplomat, Hackett,_ she thought to herself.

Victus studied her for a long moment. “ _I have heard that Earth is under the same pressure as Palaven. I offer my sympathy, but I must warn you that I can offer no more than that.”_

His words were a lot smoother than hers, but he didn’t so much as twitch at her verbal clumsiness. She was grateful. She supposed that had a lot to do with his being a soldier suddenly shoehorned into being a diplomat too.

She nodded. She had been expecting his response. “I understand your fleet is needed here at Palaven right now, sir. I may have an idea that could help with that.” She had a plan, actually. A big, ambitious, risky plan. But if they could pull it off…

Victus’ mandibles shifted, and she wished she was better at reading turian expressions. “ _That sounds… intriguing. All right, Commander, the least I can do is agree to speak with you after you saved the lives of General Corinthus and his men.”_

“Thank you, sir. The General has supplied me with your coordinates. I’ll send a shuttle down to pick you up.” She nodded to Joker, who opened a comm channel and quietly arranged it.

“ _I appreciate it. Commander, I have an old friend of yours down here with me as well. He’ll want to accompany me.”_

The professional, polite façade Shepard had adopted while speaking with the Primarch gave way to genuine happiness as Garrus Vakarian stepped into view of the camera. _Garrus!_ “Garrus is always welcome aboard the _Normandy_ , sir,” she replied, beaming and not bothering to hide it.

After exchanging the usual pleasantries Shepard broke the connection, leaned back in her chair and allowed a slow smile to spread across her face as she closed her eyes for a moment. Seeing Garrus had brought back the giddy, hopeful feeling she had experienced as that Reaper went down on the surface of Menae. Hope… she hadn’t felt that in quite some time.

“Good day, Commander?” Joker asked lightly.

“Hell of a good day, Joker,” she murmured in reply without opening her eyes.

Half an hour later she had showered and changed into dress blues, greeted the Primarch and Garrus as they came onboard, and was now standing at attention before the QEC terminal. Seeing Garrus step off the shuttle had improved her mood substantially, and it was already in a pretty good place. Now he stood just outside the communications room as she delivered her report to Admiral Hackett.

“ _Did I hear you right, Shepard? You took out a Reaper on foot?”_

She shifted uncomfortably and shook her head. “No, sir. Joker—Flight Lieutenant Moreau—and the _Normandy_ took it out. The ground team and I just got the hell out of its way.”

“ _You know very well that the_ Normandy _destroying a Reaper is the same thing as_ you _destroying a Reaper. To the galaxy at large, anyway.”_

She crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously and glanced back over her shoulder at Garrus. His mandibles flared in something she judged to be amusement. She scowled at him and turned back to Hackett. “All right, sir. Whatever they want to say.”

“ _Shepard, you know how important morale is. Don’t whinge at me. I don’t have time to coddle you.”_

“Uh… sorry, Admiral,” she recovered quickly, surprised at the rebuke. He usually indulged her when she grumbled about the machinations of Alliance PR. She liked to think it was because he knew she would have her say and then get on with the job, because she understood good PR was a necessary evil. But this time he clearly didn’t have the tolerance for it.

He was pacing, sometimes moving just outside of camera range. “ _The Reaper stayed down?”_

She nodded. “Yes, sir. It has so far. EDI hasn’t been able to provide me with a conclusive answer as to why, but her best guess is that the impact caused an overload or some sort of feedback within its systems. It knocked out all power.”

“ _So it may not be dead, just disabled? It might ‘wake up’ at any moment?”_

“We don’t know, sir. Best case scenario, its power core may have been completely destroyed. The turians are on-site investigating further.”

“ _I trust they’re taking precautions against indoctrination.”_

“Of course. But they say the chance to get a closer look is too good to pass up.”

He grunted. “ _They’re right about that. All right, this is good information, Shepard. Good work. Let me know if the turians find anything.”_

“Will do, sir.”

“ _How are you progressing with your diplomatic assignment? I assume destroying that Reaper helped you make a bit of headway with the turians.”_

She shifted her weight again and kept any negativity from her tone, knowing the Admiral wasn’t in the mood for any more grumbling from her. “I hope so. Primarch Victus is on board the _Normandy_ to discuss what we can do about Palaven. If we can remove the need for the turian fleet to be at Palaven, we’ll have them for Earth.”

Hackett raised an eyebrow and made an impatient gesture. _“Come on, Shepard, don’t make me fish for information. I know you have a plan. What is it?”_

Garrus made an irritated sound behind her, muttering something unflattering about Hackett. She didn’t turn to look at him this time. “We need to take advantage of the Reapers’ weakness before they have a chance to correct it. I want to push them off Palaven entirely. As it stands, however, we don’t have the ground troops or the ships to do that. I propose to use my past relationship with Urdnot Wrex to solicit the aid of the krogan on the ground. In space, I want to borrow the Third Fleet.”

Shepard gamely held the Admiral’s stare. It was an ambitious plan, she knew, but it had a lot of merit. With the Reapers divided and a weakness revealed, they would never get a chance like this again. If the Crucible failed and they didn’t take advantage of this moment, they would be facing the full complement of Reaper forces from a severely weakened platform. They had to thin their numbers while they could.

Even so, it would be a huge risk to commit such a large percentage of the galaxy’s potential forces to a battle that would not ultimately decide the war. But Hackett wasn’t one to agree to an action unless the risk was worth the payout. And unlike her, he was accustomed to strategizing with full fleets and armies. Hackett was the foremost human tactician in the galaxy and if he backed her it would be an assurance that her plan was good.

Hackett folded an arm around his waist and rested an elbow on it, rubbing the side of his chin. _“Don’t ask for much, do you Shepard?”_

“I could say the same for you, sir,” she replied boldly. Garrus snickered quietly.

He paced for a moment, thoughtful, then finally the corner of his mouth twitched in what she thought was _nearly_ a smile. _“All right, Shepard, if you can get the krogan, you’ll have the Third.”_

A thrill of excitement rushed through her body. “Thank you, sir.”

_“Admiral Singh will have the command in space, but I want you in charge on the ground. To facilitate that, you can drop the Lieutenant from your title as of now, Commander.”_

Shepard’s eyebrows flew up. _Holy_ … He had just leaped her forward three separate ranks, past Captain. Belatedly, she remembered to raise her hand and salute. “I… uh, thank you, sir.”

_“Close your mouth, Shepard, you look like one of those fish of yours,”_ he grumbled. _“It’s past time you were promoted. You deserve it. Send me a comprehensive rundown of the turian forces and your initial plans for the ground forces as soon as you can. Keep me updated. Hackett out.”_

The QEC shut down, the hologram fading away. Shepard blinked at the empty wall, not quite able to move just yet.

“Damn,” Garrus drawled. “Can he do that?”

“I’m… not entirely sure,” Shepard admitted as she stepped away from the comm terminal, still shocked. “But if you think about it, who’s still alive in the Alliance to tell him he can’t?”

Garrus’ mandibles fluttered in what she thought might be a wince. “Heh. Good point.”

She shook her head, pushing stunned thoughts of her promotion aside. “It doesn’t matter what my rank is. It doesn’t change what I have to do.” She looked up at Garrus as they started walking toward the conference room where Victus was waiting. “You want in?” she asked.

He huffed. “I think I’m insulted you had to ask me that, Shepard.”

 

* * *

 

By the time he arrived back on the _Normandy_ , Nathan had received a crash course in _real_ history. Not the carefully spun tales the Council had approved and disseminated for the masses, but the gritty reality of how Shepard had managed to save the galaxy from the Reapers _twice_ already – three times if you counted Aratoht – with the wider galactic community none the wiser. Kasumi and Miranda hadn’t known her before she died, during the fight against Saren and Sovereign, but they both had alternative means of finding out the truth and they had put them to use quite effectively.

He found it hard to wrap his head around any of it. The fact that Shepard had learned about the Reapers all the way back on Eden Prime three years ago and had been carrying that knowledge around with her ever since, constantly fighting for someone, _anyone_ in power to listen to her and believe her, was… incredible. He couldn’t imagine constantly being told that something you knew was true beyond a shadow of a doubt was actually a delusion. He _definitely_ couldn’t imagine being forced to keep quiet and do your job, despite being absolutely certain that keeping quiet would cost billions of innocent people their lives.

In particular, he found it hard to believe that the Citadel Council had completely dismissed her findings over the years. She had presented them with a consistent stream of evidence in the form of recordings, data and even a Reaper conveniently destroyed on their doorstep, and yet they still refused to listen. He didn’t understand it.

When he mentioned that to Miranda, she had told him about a night she and Shepard had stayed up late chatting over glasses of wine. The two of them had discussed it. Shepard had been just as perplexed at the time, but Miranda had been able to put it into perspective. It wasn’t that the Council didn’t believe Shepard, and they certainly didn’t have some sort of personal grudge against her, but it was their responsibility to play the _very_ long game. Shepard couldn’t give them a solid timeline for the Reapers’ arrival and they knew they couldn’t possibly maintain a state bordering on martial law indefinitely. Criminals would take advantage of people’s desire to get around restrictions. The leaders of the militaries of the galaxy ran the risk of becoming restless and eager to put their heightened strength to good – or not so good – use. Civilians would begin to chafe under the harsher living conditions and rebellions would start to fester.

None of this would happen in a year, or even two or three, but give it five years and the galaxy would be teetering on the brink of instability. The Council wouldn’t be able to stop it. As infuriating as their inaction was to everyone who knew the truth about the Reapers, including Miranda herself, the ex-Cerberus operative had admitted that she could understand their point of view.

Nathan had to grudgingly admit that he could see the logic too, but he still thought something could have been done other than completely ignoring the threat. _Anything_ other than treating the woman who had saved billions of lives, including their own, like a pariah. He couldn’t believe they had called her deluded and arranged for the Alliance to send her out to the far reaches of the galaxy to hunt leftover geth. Where she had, of course, died.

When Shepard’s death had been mentioned, Miranda had refused to elaborate on the particulars, stating that it was too personal and should be left up to Shepard herself to explain, should she be willing to do so. Nathan had to respect that. If he was truthful, he didn’t particularly want to know too many more details beyond what Shepard had already told him.

The stories of Kasumi and Miranda’s time aboard the _Normandy_ with Shepard, fighting the Collectors, were much more upbeat. Kasumi eagerly told him about the time she, Miranda and Shepard had rescued Garrus Vakarian from a sniper’s perch in an abandoned apartment building on Omega by completely destroying _three_ entire mercenary outfits. If that wasn’t remarkable enough, Nathan had been thoroughly impressed to learn that Garrus had survived for three days alone, and over that time he had killed an equivalent number to the total they had taken out as a group during the final standoff. Garrus sounded like a hell of a badass.

Miranda came close to waxing lyrical about the tactical marvel Shepard had created from the situation, fluidly and efficiently cutting off every avenue of attack the mercenaries employed, even destroying a gunship on foot after it had almost killed Garrus. Nathan found it amusing, the way Miranda spoke about Shepard’s skill on the battlefield. Miranda seemed almost _motherly_ toward the Commander. She doted on the woman as though she believed she had the right to take credit for her actions in some part, like a mother proud of her child’s accomplishments. Nathan supposed it made a macabre sort of sense, seeing as how Miranda had been the operative in charge of the Lazarus project and therefore responsible for bringing Shepard back to life.

Shepard herself had mostly stayed out of the conversation on the shuttle, either talking with EDI or Joker via her in-ear comm or sitting with Steve Cortez in the cockpit. Nathan did notice the occasional exasperated glance tossed over her shoulder in their direction, however, particularly when Miranda was talking.

When he thought he could get away with no one seeing what he was doing, Nathan had cast numerous glances at Shepard. He watched her go about her business, talking with Cortez, or EDI via comm, armoured boots casually up on the console. He wondered how she wasn’t a gibbering mess after everything she had been through. He understood a lot better now how she had come to be in that chair, on this shuttle, on the _Normandy_ at the head of the war against the Reapers. He had already known that she had chosen to destroy the Alpha relay to buy the galaxy six months to prepare for the arrival of the Reapers but he hadn’t understood everything that had led up to it. He felt as though he could finally let any lingering doubt he was harbouring over that decision go.

Sadly they arrived back on the _Normandy_ before Kasumi and Miranda could finish describing the mission to recruit a salarian scientist named Mordin Solus. Shepard hurried off as soon as they docked the shuttle, having started another conversation with EDI over the comm regarding the turian Primarch. Nathan knew she had far more important things to do than just hang out with him, but he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed as he watched her go. He was still riding the high that had come with killing a Reaper and he really wanted to share it with her.

Over the past few months he had grown used to the idea that she was the person he most wanted to share important – and unimportant – thoughts and events with, even if he didn’t think about it in so many words. He enjoyed talking with her, joking with her, teasing her. He never seemed to get tired of any of that, but he _particularly_ enjoyed teasing her. He loved seeing how she would react. Sometimes she would give him a wry look, or maybe an exasperated one, or she would roll her eyes, and each morphed her expressive face into something new and interesting. And then she would probably fire off some sort of comeback. Sometimes it would be a good one, but more often than not it would be _terrible_ , truly horrible, and she would wrinkle her nose as if she smelled something off even as she said it. He would laugh, and she would usually smile. He loved her smile. He loved making her laugh. He loved just beingaround her.

He sighed and headed for the crew showers. He was attracted to her, yeah, but it wasn’t just that. He was falling for her. Hard. He didn’t care that she was some legendary galactic hero. He didn’t care that she had died and been brought back to life. He didn’t care that she was probably with Major Alenko. He was falling anyway.

Before he could stop himself, he snorted aloud in laughter. Of all the women he could have developed feelings for, he had managed to fall for _Commander fucking Shepard_.

Kasumi and Miranda looked at him strangely as they boarded the elevator together, but he just shook his head, a faint blush creeping up his neck.

“Are you all right?” Miranda asked, managing to turn a concerned question into an accusation.

“I’m fine, I just had an itchy throat,” he told her lamely.

She gave him a dubious look but appeared to let it go. Thankfully they reached the crew deck quickly. As they exited the elevator and made to split up, Nathan heading for the crew quarters and Miranda for the XO’s cabin, Kasumi stopped them. “I want both of you in the mess in an hour,” she said. “We need to celebrate killing that Reaper.”

Miranda raised an eyebrow. “We do? I shouldn’t think people would be interested in celebrating something that will no doubt become commonplace.”

“Of _course_ we do, _XO_ ,” Kasumi replied, emphasising the ‘XO’ as if it was obvious and Miranda should really know that, in her position. “Everyone’s seen the devastation those things are causing on Earth. This is an Alliance crew. They need a chance to cheer about taking one of them down.”

Miranda cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. “That does make a certain amount of sense from a crew morale perspective. All right, Kasumi, I’ll be there.”

Kasumi smiled and turned to Nathan. “And you, Lieutenant Briggs?” she asked.

Party? Hell yes. If he couldn’t talk to Shepard about taking the Reaper out, this was the next best thing. “I’m in,” he told her.

“Excellent.” She clapped her hands together decisively. “Make sure you tell everyone you can.”

“Shouldn’t you run this by the Commander?” Miranda pointed out. “If you’re going to invite the whole ship, that is.”

Kasumi waved away her objection. “Shep won’t mind, and besides, I have the XO’s permission.” Miranda raised an eyebrow. Kasumi grinned broadly. “Don’t worry so much. Just leave it to me.”

With that, she headed off down the corridor toward the Port Observation lounge. Nathan exchanged glances with Miranda. He shrugged, and Miranda shook her head.

“Was she like this during the Collector mission?” Nathan asked.

“She was,” Miranda replied. “Strangely though, I think it was _good_ for us. She did make a good point about morale, and I can see Shepard agreeing with that.”

Nathan wasn’t about to go and tattle on one of his crewmates to the commander even if she was his friend. “Oh well, like she said, leave it to her. I’m not going to say no to a party.”

Miranda rolled her eyes and headed off to her cabin. Nathan tossed her a wave and hurried off to the showers. He shucked and cleaned his armour in record time, stowing it carefully in his crew locker. Then he sung his way through the shower, earning himself a pained look from Crewman Rogers over the cubicle wall as he finished his own shower and left. Nathan didn’t care. He sang louder.

He was on a ship with Commander Shepard and they had just killed a Reaper.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Chapter Sixteen**

Shepard leaned back in her chair, away from the terminal on her desk, and stretched her arms up over her head with a yawn. She experimentally rolled the shoulder she had wrenched on Menae. It wasn’t feeling too bad. It was the same shoulder that had been giving her problems since the mission against the Collectors, but she had managed to get medi-gel on it quickly so with any luck the new strain wouldn’t aggravate the old one.

Sitting hunched over in front of a terminal for hours at a time had never done her body any good, though. Especially when it involved typing. She had never been able to type very quickly. She flexed her right hand, expecting a little pain, but it was almost completely healed. It only twinged, even after what had to have been at least two straight hours of typing. She wished she could have switched over to audio logging, but the security applied to classified mission reports prevented that.

She was sure she had never had to type up so many reports at once before in her entire military career. There had been the rundown of the Menae mission, the collation of her own specific observations regarding the Reaper with those of the turians, and the outline of her plan to push the Reapers off Menae, to name a few. After that, of course, she had had to summarise her discussion with Primarch Victus, including his cautious agreement with her plan despite the reservations he expressed over bringing the krogan into it. She had found him to be quite a forward thinker and very pragmatic when it came to allying the turian people with their old adversaries. After she was finished with all that, she completed a brief outline of her next mission – to go to Tuchanka and convince her old friend Wrex to be as pragmatic as Victus. Which would no doubt be all kinds of fun.

But at least she was finally finished now, and they were a couple of hours into the trip to Tuchanka. With a satisfied noise she hit the send button. Specialist Traynor would figure out how best to get it all to Hackett through the damaged comm buoy system.

Glancing at the chrono, she realised she had completely missed dinner. Right on cue, her stomach rumbled obligingly. She grumbled to herself and headed down to the crew deck, hoping the new mess sergeant had kept something aside for her. The man was a miracle worker. Even the best quality ingredients, such as what the _Normandy_ had been stocked with by the Alliance provisioning chief on the Citadel, had to be frozen or broken down for long-term shipboard usage. The new cook had managed to consistently produce tasty, filling meals regardless. As much as she had liked Mess Sergeant Gardner, the new guy simply outclassed him.

As she stepped out of the elevator on the crew deck she was mid-stretch, elbow raised in the air. She walked straight into a wall of noise. Someone had managed to pipe some upbeat music with a lot of heavy bass into the area; the volume would probably have had the deck rattling beneath her feet if the _Normandy_ wasn’t such a state-of-the-art warship and therefore built exceptionally sturdily. Blinking in surprise, she lowered her arm and cautiously made her way around the divider separating the elevator from the mess itself.

Nearly the whole crew was crowded into the common area. There had to be at least fifty people there, spilling up onto the gangway leading to the main battery and standing clumped in groups around the mess tables. She spotted James and Zaeed at one of the tables having what looked like an arm-wrestling match while Traynor and the new pilot Cortez looked on. As she watched, Traynor had a quick conversation with one of the new crew members they had picked up on the Citadel then made a notation on a small datapad. If Shepard didn’t know better, she would have thought Traynor had just taken a bet.

Engineers Daniels, Donnelly and Adams were gathered with a few of the crewmembers from navigation and engineering, comparing something on their omnitools. Donnelly was getting quite enthusiastic, punctuating his words with his hands, but Daniels looked like she was having none of it, shaking her head and gesturing at Adams.

Miranda, Joker and Chakwas were all sitting around another of the tables playing poker with some of the other crewmembers. Joker’s pile of chips was looking small and forlorn compared to Chakwas’ and Miranda’s. Shepard winced. Joker had never been the best poker player, whereas poker – or, more to the point, effective subterfuge – was one of Miranda’s more esoteric but still perfectly honed skills. Chakwas was an unknown – despite months of service together she and Chakwas had never played poker – but judging by the pile of chips in front of her, she was more than capable of holding her own against Miranda.

Garrus, Kasumi and a group of enthusiastic crewmembers had turned the area between the tiny kitchen and the medbay into a makeshift dancefloor. Shepard could feel her eyebrows rising toward the ceiling as she took in the sight of Garrus not just bobbing and jerking around in an effort to fit in, but _dancing_. With Kasumi. Kasumi was laughing as Garrus skilfully spun her around.

A light touch on her elbow drew her attention away from the unlikely spectacle of Garrus not only dancing, but dancing _well._ Nathan stepped up beside her, a big smile on his face. “What the hell is going on here?” she demanded, probably sounding a little angrier than she had intended. She was more surprised than angry, really.

He hesitated before replying, smile faltering a little. “Well… we thought we needed to celebrate killing that Reaper, and—“

A loud cheer cut him off, coming from the direction of the arm-wrestling table. Shepard glanced sharply back in that direction. Vega had his arms raised and was crowing about his victory over Zaeed, who looked decidedly unimpressed. Now that he wasn’t distracted by the match he had just won, Vega spotted Shepard standing off to the side. He let out a loud cheer, almost making her jump in surprise. “Commander! Hey! Congratulations!” he yelled happily.

His outburst alerted the rest of the crew to her presence and to her horror all fifty of them spun around, cheering and raising their glasses, momentarily drowning out the music. She felt the back of her neck warm at the unexpected deluge of attention. She shifted uncomfortably. She could handle crowds and attention in a fight, or if she had had a chance to prepare, but in a social setting when she had been surprised? Not so much. “Uh…” she faltered, surreptitiously glancing at Nathan for help.

He seemed to notice her reaction. “Garrus told us about your promotion,” he explained, leaning down and speaking directly into her ear so she would be able to hear him over the noise. His presence at her shoulder was oddly reassuring. “The party is for that _and_ the dead Reaper.”

_Oh._ Well, she couldn’t get angry about a party that was partially for _her_ , even if it was breaking a bunch of regs. And she hadn’t known about it until she walked in on it. She stifled a resigned sigh and took a deep breath instead, trying to feel less like a bug under a microscope with the whole crew watching her expectantly. “Thanks, everyone, I appreciate it,” she called in what she hoped was a good imitation of cheeriness. A couple of the newer crew members started to stand up and salute, but she quickly waved them down. “As you were. Have fun.” Another scattered cheer greeted that as the crew turned back to whatever they had been doing before she arrived.

She let out a relieved breath and began to make her way through the crowd towards the kitchen. Nathan followed, keeping up with her. “You all right, Commander?” he asked.

“Of course,” she replied. No way was she admitting any sort of weakness in front of the crew. “Tired and hungry, though. I hope Sergeant… Chang? Chen?” She paused, glancing up at him.

“Chan, I think,” he offered.

She nodded and shouldered her way into the kitchen. “Sergeant Chan. I hope he kept something aside for me.”

She flipped open the warmer and reached inside, finding a covered plate labelled with ‘Cmdr’. She smiled to herself. He had done it again. She pulled the plate out and grabbed some utensils before joining Nathan at the counter. He had pulled up a stool; she grabbed the one next to him and unwrapped her food.

“I think congratulations are in order,” Nathan said, leaning back and propping his elbows up on the counter behind him. “I hear it’s long overdue.”

She shrugged, tucking into her dinner, which was a fusion of beef from Earth, asari vegetables and a levo version of some sort of turian grain. It was delicious. “That’s what Hackett tells me.”

He peered at her. “You don’t seem too excited,” he commented.

“It doesn’t change what I have to do,” she replied. Immediately she grimaced. That sounded way too fatalistic and entirely ungrateful. “But it’s nice to be acknowledged,” she added.

Nathan snorted with an amused grin. “I don’t think you have to worry about that, oh Great Commander Shepard. When this war is over they’ll probably build a few monuments in your honour.”

She winced. _If I succeed. And if we all survive._ She kept those thoughts to herself. “God, I hope not.” Time to change the subject. “So what set all this off, anyway?” she asked, indicating the bottle of beer Nathan was holding loosely by the neck, and the party at large.

“Kasumi thought we all needed a chance to celebrate. Let off some steam. She produced the alcohol from somewhere and convinced Chan to whip up a few snacks.” He threw her a wary glance. “She thought you wouldn’t mind.”

Shepard raised an eyebrow. “She did, huh?”

Nathan shifted awkwardly in his seat. “Well, Staff Lieutenant Lawson was there at the time and she didn’t say no… so technically we had the XO’s permission…” he trailed off.

“’We’?” she repeated.

He paused. “Um.”

Shepard stifled a chuckle at the look on his face. It wasn’t often she got to turn the tables and tease _him._ “Relax, Briggs, it’s okay. You’re off the hook. I’m not going to put a stop to this. It was a good idea.”

He made a face at her and she grinned in response, trying not to be _too_ smug.

She ate her dinner in silence for a little while, as he watched the party around them. He was quiet for a long time. When she looked up, he was staring off into the middle distance with a reflective half-smile. He had such a warm, friendly smile, she couldn’t help it when she smiled too. “What are you thinking about?” she asked him curiously.

“Killing that Reaper was the _best_ feeling,” he reminisced fervently.

“It was pretty good,” she agreed.

“We kicked ass. _You_ kicked ass while also dragging me around by the scruff of the neck.”

To be honest, she felt a bit bad about that. But even now, with the benefit of hindsight, she couldn’t see any other way to make sure he survived that encounter. “Sorry about that, but I didn’t see that I had much choice at the time.”

He shook his head. “That wasn’t an accusation. I’d rather be here with my dignity a little bruised than back down there in a pile of ashes. Thanks for saving my slow ass.”

“Any time,” she replied, getting up to put her plate in the washer. “After all, I need your slow ass.” She stopped, hand on the washer drawer. _What did I just say?_ “For the squad,” she added. Oh, hell.

His lips were twitching in amusement as she trudged back over to her stool and spun around to face the party, matching his slouching posture against the bar. He reached over and patted her shoulder. “Nice one,” he commiserated.

She refrained from flipping him off. “That was a pretty comprehensive history lesson Kasumi and Miranda gave you earlier. Did Kasumi tell you that one of the first missions we did together was to go to a party?” she asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “No. What happened?”

She told him the story of the infiltration of Donovan Hock’s mansion and how she and Kasumi had retrieved her lover Keiji’s greybox. “We didn’t manage to keep it stealthy for long,” she admitted. “Hock was onto us pretty quickly. He sprung the trap after we had managed to get into his vault. We had to shoot our way out.”

“That seems to happen a lot with you.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I can’t help it if people keep trying to shoot me.”

He winked at her with a big, teasing grin. “You’d think they would have figured out by now that it’s not too good for their health to start shooting at Commander Shepard.” Laugh lines appeared at the corners of his eyes as he smiled, creasing the skin. She suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to reach up and lightly run her fingers over them, then along the lines of his cheekbones and...

_Shepard…_

She cleared her throat, realising she should probably say something. “So anyway, we took out the rest of the mercs and Hock’s gunship and hightailed it out of there,” she finished a little too quickly.

“Wait a second,” Nathan interjected, spinning to face her and leaning an elbow on the counter in rapt attention. “You did all this in a dress and high heels?”

She blinked. “What? Of course not. Kasumi concealed our armour and guns in the statue of Saren we brought as a gift,” she explained.

“Oh.” He sighed. “Pity. That’s one _hell_ of an image.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I can’t imagine trying to pull off a combat roll in…” She trailed off at his pained, slightly embarrassed look. She frowned. “What?”

“Christ, Shepard, I was trying to _flirt_ with you,” he told her.

Her eyebrows flew up involuntarily. “You were?”

He gave her an exasperated look. “Obviously I didn’t do a very good job of it.”

She wasn’t sure how to react. She felt a bit silly for not realising what he was doing, but then again she had never been very good with social situations. It wasn’t like no one had ever flirted with her before, but she had always either ignored it, pretended she hadn’t noticed or found some way to deflect the attention. Now, she found herself wanting to… encourage it. That made her nervous for a lot of reasons.

Chief among those… she _liked_ Nathan. A lot. Probably too much, considering the Alliance regulations on the subject. And regardless of regulations, he was her responsibility. Just like she had been his back in Vancouver, when she had cut off that moment they had shared by her window and sent him back to his quarters. The power imbalance made it a high possibility that if she was to encourage him and things… progressed… she would be taking advantage of him. It was the last thing she wanted to do.

And yet… Her mind flitted back to that night on Vancouver, when she had allowed months of frustration to spill over in front of him. Instead of recoiling or running away, he had jumped up to try and… take care of her. He had held her hand close, protective in a way no one had ever thought to be with her before. Although she had been very drunk, she could still remember the heady combination of affection and longing in his liquid brown eyes.

She _wanted_ to encourage him. Badly. Surely it wouldn’t be the end of the world if she did. It would just be a little harmless flirting.

_The end of the world._ She felt a flash of anger. Chances are, if she couldn’t stop the Reapers, it would be the end of the whole bloody human race. And the asari, salarians, turians… There was so much at _stake!_

But instead of using that as an excuse to back off, she felt acutely rebellious. The Reapers occupied her thoughts, the Alliance had her soul and Hackett was pulling her strings but her heart was _hers,_ dammit.

“Maybe you should try again, then,” she suggested bravely, feeling annoyingly shy as she spoke.

Nathan looked surprised. “Really?” he finally asked. “But… what about Major Alenko?”

_Kaidan?_ She frowned, feeling a very unwelcome pang of guilt. There was nothing between her and Kaidan, and hadn’t been for quite some time, but she still found herself feeling guilty about carrying on with her life while he was fighting for his in a hospital bed on the Citadel. He had been part of her team – and a friend – for so long that it was difficult to train her mind into thinking of him as nothing but a soldier under her command. “What _about_ the Major?”

“Aren’t you… together? A couple?” Nathan asked awkwardly.

She shook her head. “No. Once. Months— _years_ ago,” she corrected herself. Sometimes it was still difficult to remember that while it had been only months for her it had been over two years for everyone else.

“Oh,” he murmured quietly, a small smile playing over his lips. He glanced at her briefly, and the relief in his face was enough to send things fluttering in her chest. She watched, fascinated, as the usual wise-cracking, self-assured Nathan began to re-emerge as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “So, Commander,” he drawled. “I have your permission to flirt with you as much as I want, then?”

God, there was something about the way he said the word ‘commander’ that had very little to do with military respect. “You can try,” she replied, feeling the corner of her mouth twitch up as a little of her own confidence filtered back in.

He opened his mouth to respond.

“Commander!”

Shepard almost jumped at the new voice. She hadn’t realised how absorbed she had become. Garrus was reaching out to her even before she noticed he was there. He grabbed her hands and tugged her forward. “Shepard! It’s time for some dancing!”

She recoiled instinctively, pulling her hands away. “Ohhh no, Garrus. No way.”

Nathan was watching with interest as Garrus cocked his head to the side and stared at her. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was giving her puppy-dog eyes. “Shepard, come on…” he drawled in a curiously turian version of a pleading whine.

How much had he drunk? She laughed. “No. No dancing. I’d have to be very drunk to set foot on that dance floor of yours and I haven’t had anything.”

“Well? What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “You’re allowed to have fun too, you know.”

Okay, yes, that was a good point. And she had wanted to find some way to start bonding with the new crew they had picked up on the Citadel. But there were other considerations. She looked at him regretfully. “I can’t. All the senior officers are here already, and way ahead of me. Someone needs to stay sober to look after the _Normandy_. EDI doesn’t count,” she added before he could suggest the AI.

He stuck a finger out and pointed it squarely at her chest. “Ha! Miranda knew you would say that. _Staff Lieutenant Lawson_ hasn’t touched a drop all night. She can take command.”

She glanced over at Miranda, who, sure enough, was drinking some sort of fruit drink. She considered for a moment before turning back to Garrus. “All right. I’ll have a drink. But I am _not_ dancing.”

Garrus spun in place and started bobbing along to the music. “Yet!” he exclaimed. “You’re joining me later, Shepard!”

She made a face as he returned to the dance floor. He found Gabby Daniels dancing beside Donnelly and Chan and grabbed her, twirling her expertly. Daniels let out a shriek of delight. Shepard had to smile at that. She had no idea Garrus had so many _moves._

Suddenly a drink appeared directly in front of her. She glanced over at Nathan, who grinned broadly. She took the glass and cast him a withering look, trying to ignore the little somersault her stomach seemed to want to do whenever he winked or smiled in her direction. “Subtle,” she commented.

“Wasn’t trying to be,” he responded smoothly.

_Oh, okay then._ She buried her face in her glass, trying to hide the embarrassing flush that was no doubt creeping up her neck. “Look, you don’t want to see me dance,” she protested. “I’m really terrible, and I’m not exaggerating. At all. It’s not pleasant. For anyone. Especially me.” She forced herself to stop talking, fully aware she was starting to babble. _Bloody hell. Pull yourself together,_ Commander.

He shook his head, and for a moment seemed to have stopped with the teasing. “I don’t believe that for a second. I’ve seen you out on the battlefield, Shepard. You have some beautiful moves.”

She glanced up at him. No one had ever called the way she fought _beautiful_ before. She had never even thought about it. She knew she had a talent for it, but… it was just something she did. “It’s not the same thing,” she objected.

“It is, though,” he insisted. “Look at Kasumi.” He gestured toward the thief, who was now dancing with Donnelly. “She’s an artist in a fight and a very good dancer. And Garrus! I heard about how long he held out against those mercs on Omega, and look at him dance. I bet Miranda’s just as good.”

Shepard snorted. “I’d take that bet. She’s almost as bad as I am.” It was true. It was one of the very few things Miranda was absolutely _no_ good at.

A loud groan came from the crew members at the poker table, grabbing Shepard’s attention. She bumped Nathan companionably in the shoulder, telling herself she hadn’t just done that for an excuse to touch him, and meandered over as Joker stood up, shaking his head. “No way. I’m done. I’ve lost enough to you tonight,” he was complaining as he made to leave.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Miranda cleaned me out, Commander,” Joker complained.

“You need to work on your poker face, Flight Lieutenant,” Miranda replied, a hair short of smirking.

“You are rather obvious on occasion, Jeff,” Chakwas added from behind her significant pile of chips.

“Oh come on, you’re ganging up on me now?” Joker protested.

Shepard laughed. “Come on Joker, sit back down. I’ll spot you some credits. Deal me in.” She cast a devilish grin at Miranda, who sighed. Miranda was good at poker, but Shepard had always been better. Maybe she could take Dr Chakwas too.

“Must you spoil my fun, Commander?”

“You giving up already, Lawson? It’s probably for the best.”

Miranda snorted. “I never give up, Shepard. Come on, then. Let’s go.”

Joker resumed his seat and Shepard took the one across from Miranda as another crewmember bowed out, vacating it. Nathan slipped into a free seat down the table and took the pack of cards, dealing everyone in. Shepard watched his hands as he dealt, impressed by their deftness. With his size and his lumbering performance on the battlefield, she wouldn’t have guessed him to be good with his hands. She took a sip of her drink to distract herself from wondering just _how_ good he might be with those heavy, calloused fingers.

As the night wore on she found herself stealing more and more glances at the Lieutenant. She was a little irritated with herself. She was behaving like a school girl with a crush.

It had been different with Kaidan, back on the SR-1. She hadn’t really been thinking about him romantically, but he had been so amiable and they had gotten along so well that when he told her he was interested she hadn’t been opposed to giving it a shot. She had definitely found him attractive, but it was more an objective impression than a desire to throw him down and tear his clothes off. Their night together before Ilos had been a reflection of that – good, but not great. It had been fine. She had decided to see where things would go with him after the Battle of the Citadel, but although they enjoyed each other’s company immensely she had never felt any spark. His reaction to bumping into her on Horizon led her to believe he had been far more invested than she was.

The way he had accused her of turning traitor on Horizon had made her furious. It still did, even now, even after they had it out on Mars. After Horizon she had been so angry that she had jumped straight into bed with the smoking hot Cerberus agent the Illusive Man had supplied her with, Jacob Taylor, when he shamelessly hit on her. She still regretted that. He was a good man. A bit smarmy on occasion, but he didn’t deserve to be used like that. After the final mission to the Collector base she had allowed whatever was between them to gradually fade away. If she was honest with herself, she had become bored with him very quickly. Aside from his body, she had found him a little… bland.

Talking with Nathan was completely different to talking with Jacob or Kaidan. Although he wasn’t the most eloquent man, he seemed to complement her own personality well enough that when they spoke she never found herself tuning out. He was constantly teasing her or cracking a joke, but she never found his humour to be mean-spirited or in bad taste. It wasn’t that he understood what he could get away with around her and was playing within those lines, either, like Jacob; it was more that he actually had no desire to push what she considered to be boundaries because they were his boundaries too.

And his body… well. He didn’t ooze sex from every pore like Jacob had, but that was a good thing. She appreciated a little more subtlety. He was tall, well-built and well-muscled, with those big, calloused hands she could almost feel running down her…

_Shepard! Jesus!_

She blinked, forcing her mind back to the card game, and snuck another glance at him over the top of her cards. He had a slight frown on his face – that was one of his tells. It meant he had a decent, but not great, hand. One by one the others folded, until it was only the two of them left. Her own hand wasn’t really worth betting over, but she raised anyway and he called. When they showed their hands, his three of a kind beat her two-pair. He grinned triumphantly and outwardly she tossed her hand down with a groan, while inwardly she felt herself melt a little at his grin.

There was definitely a spark there. And… she was still behaving like a schoolgirl with a crush. She sighed.

Miranda was looking at her with a thoughtful expression. Shepard wouldn’t put it past her to realise that she had just thrown the game solely as an excuse to see Nathan smile, but if she asked Shepard could always say she had been trying to show the crew they could beat her and get away without a week of latrine duty.

“You’re a bit off your game, Shepard,” Miranda commented, a challenge in her voice.

“You haven’t won a hand against me yet, Lawson,” Shepard shot back cheerfully, peripherally aware of the crew members who were now watching the battle between their commander and their XO with interest. No doubt this would go a long way toward getting the crew more comfortable with their new XO. Two birds, one stone. “Go on, deal again.”

This time she pushed _all_ thoughts of Nathan firmly to the back of her mind and concentrated on trouncing Miranda. The two of them had built a strong friendship around the fight against the Collectors but it had always been a competitive one. It hadn’t started out that way, but had naturally evolved over time when they realised how much they both loved a contest. Having been engineered to be the perfect genetic specimen, Miranda was so good at so many things that she had found it difficult to find someone who could challenge her. She had told Shepard that it had been a pleasure to finally have someone who could give her a run for her money. Shepard wasn’t quite as widely skilled, but in certain areas she too had found it difficult to find decent competition, so she had been equally pleased to find it in Miranda. She had missed the former Cerberus operative while she was incarcerated.

Bit by bit Shepard whittled away at Miranda’s – and Chakwas’ – pile of chips, although she lost more than a few hands along the way. Chakwas in particular gave her some trouble. Those steely grey eyes revealed nothing and even managed to intimidate her a little.

Aside from Chakwas and Miranda, crewman Taschev from the security detachment turned out to be surprisingly good and irritatingly unaffected by her slightly unfair attempts to scare him with her rank. Even the full ‘Commander stare’ did nothing. As she lost to him for what had to be the fifth time, she had to admit she was impressed. After that fifth time, she got up to refill her drink, grabbing a beer for him at the same time. When she sat down again, she slid it over to him with a nod and a smile. His aquiline, Slavic features relaxed just slightly as he showed a bit of genuine relief that she wasn’t angry with him.

In terms of drinks, Shepard paced herself carefully. Even though Miranda had confirmed she was staying sober, Shepard still didn’t want to drink too much while on active duty. It didn’t matter that they still had at least thirty-six hours to go until they reached Tuchanka, most of which would be spent safely in FTL; the time wasn’t the problem. It was the fact that while she was on this ship, she wasn’t just Shepard, she was _Commander Shepard_ , and there was an image she had to uphold for the crew. The younger crew members needed to see her as a constant: always reliable and always in control. Getting blind drunk would spoil that image beyond recovery.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun with her crew, though. In fact, having a little fun with the new arrivals, like Taschev, would probably be a good idea. Nathan too, in fact. The relationship they had established back on Earth meant she didn’t automatically include him when she thought about the other new crew members, but that was a mistake. He needed to grow to feel comfortable with the ship and the posting as much as they did.

She was thinking about ways to do this when Garrus came over to try and convince her to dance with them again. This time he was backed up by Vega, who also seemed to have a hell of a rhythm. Garrus beckoned to her. “Come on, Shepard…” he cajoled.

She wrinkled her nose. She really didn’t want to dance, but she had just been thinking of ways to bond with the crew… “Garrus…”

Vega jumped in, offering her a hand. “Come on, Commander. The legend surrounding your dancing is growing to epic proportions. You can’t possibly be _that_ bad.”

Before she could correct him – she could definitely be _that_ bad, she knew that because she _was_ – Garrus interjected. “She’s not, she’s just… unpolished.” She snorted at that. “What? You are. The problem is that no one has taken the time to _teach_ you yet.” His face lit up as he looked from Vega to Kasumi in obvious glee at his bright idea. “That’s it! If you come and dance with us, we’ll teach you!”

Inwardly she groaned, giving him a sceptical look. Sure, it would be nice to be able to get on a dance floor and not be the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons, but that still meant she’d have to get up and dance _now_. Besides, could she even be taught? She had never even been able to hold a rhythm.

“I’ll help,” Nathan offered, leaving his seat and moving to join Garrus, Vega and Kasumi.

“You can dance?” she asked, surprised. It wasn’t something she would have thought he could do.

He shrugged, sheepish. “Not very well. But I’m a guy, all I have to do is swing the ladies around.”

“I’m not sure that helps me very much.” She paused, eyes moving between all four of her ‘benefactors’. “Does it really take four of you to do this?” She offered one last weak protest.

“Shepard…” Garrus pleaded.

She sighed and got to her feet, telling herself it wasn’t because Nathan was now involved. The new crew could bond over making fun of their commander. That was it. “Fine. Go on, then. Do your worst.”

Kasumi made a happy noise and darted forward, grabbing her hands and pulling her toward the makeshift dance floor. To her horror at least half the crew followed, milling around on the makeshift dance floor. How did _half the crew_ know about her dubious dancing skills? They didn’t _really_ have legendary status… did they? Commander Shepard, Saviour of the Citadel, Dances Like an Elcor? Even Miranda sidled over to watch, poker forgotten. Chakwas and Joker snagged two of the stools at the kitchen counter.

Shepard wrinkled her nose as the spectators struggled to look innocent, like they were totally _not_ watching. _This had better be worth it._ Crew bonding had better happen.

Kasumi’s voice pulled her focus back. “Okay, Shep, do what I do,” Kasumi said in an encouraging voice.

“Just remember my legs don’t bend like yours, Kasumi,” Shepard warned her. She tugged at her BDU shirt, feeling awkward and clumsy next to the lithe thief.

Kasumi laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ll start with the basics. Now, listen to the music but just pick out one particular beat.”

Shepard cocked her head to the side, doing her best to follow instructions and ignore her audience. There were so many different beats, though, some sharp and loud, some deep and low. Whenever she thought she had picked one out, it changed. She looked at Kasumi helplessly. Someone in the surrounding crowd tittered, then covered it with a cough as she glared in their general direction.

“Just watch me, Shep,” Kasumi told her firmly. “See if you can pick it up from my movements.”

Kasumi began moving her feet, side to side, hips swaying in time. It looked very simple, even Shepard could see that. As she watched, she listened, and she was pretty sure she could work out which beat Kasumi was following. She nodded. “Okay, I got it.”

“Good!” Kasumi exclaimed. “Now try it yourself. Just do what I’m doing, it’s easy.”

Shepard swallowed her discomfit and started awkwardly shuffling her feet. She held tight to Kasumi’s hands and did her best to keep up, but every time she thought she might be sort of maybe getting it, Kasumi twitched a hand and she would realise that she was actually getting further behind. She looked down at her feet, frowning, trying to match them to Kasumi’s, but that seemed to only make things worse. Some nearby crew members offered words of encouragement, while others seemed to be trying to help her by showing her what to do, which was kind of endearing even if it made her feel like a complete idiot.

“No, Shep, don’t look down, just move to the beat,” Kasumi prompted her. Shepard was impressed at the patience in the younger woman’s voice. She redoubled her efforts, wanting to live up to that endless optimism, but found that this time Kasumi was trying to get her to slow down.

From off to one side she could hear James, Nathan and Garrus muttering to one another in low voices. Her neck was starting to prickle. At one point, she was certain she heard James comment, “Wow, she really _is_ that bad, isn’t she?”

Okay, that was enough. She let go of Kasumi’s hands and spun to face the three men, crossing her arms over her chest and glowering. “I _did_ warn you!”

Nathan was clearly trying to hide his amusement, but he was failing badly. The look in his eyes was… affectionate. Patronising. As though he found her _cute._ She narrowed her eyes and turned her gaze on him, annoyed. “You think you can do a better job than Kasumi, Briggs?” she challenged him.

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Garrus mused to Nathan. “With a partner to guide her, she might do better.”

She turned her glare on Garrus. “Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here, Vakarian.”

“Come on, Shepard,” Nathan said cheerfully, offering her his hand. “We’ve got a few more tricks up our sleeves. We’ll get you there.”

“Just get me there quickly, then,” she muttered grumpily, patience starting to run out. There was only so much of this kind of crew bonding she could take.

She took his hand and he pulled her in close, lifting her other hand and placing it on his shoulder. He laid his own free hand against the small of her back. She couldn’t help but inhale his scent from within the circle of his arms, a blend of warm skin and standard Alliance-issue soap. It smelled familiar, comforting. Her irritation began to drain away. Although he maintained a respectful distance of at least half a metre between them, she could still allow herself to bask in the heat radiating off his body and the firm pressure of his hand against her back.

“Kasumi, we need some better music,” he prompted the thief.

Of course. She should have known Kasumi would be the one to hack into the _Normandy’s_ speakers just to play dance music.

Kasumi fiddled with her omnitool and a lilting melody started to flow from the _Normandy’s_ bulkheads. Nathan shook his head. “Let’s not _start_ with a tango, Kasumi. We’ll scare her off.” Shepard rolled her eyes at him.

Another simpler track with a steadier beat started up. “Nice,” Nathan commented with a pleased grin. Shepard didn’t recognise the music, but before she could try too hard to place it Nathan’s hand was pressing into her back and he was moving. She fought down a moment of completely irrational panic and did her best to follow his lead.

_Christ._ She could stare a brute down from a metre away but she started to panic at the prospect of _dancing._

She stumbled along with Nathan, certain her face was bright red. She watched her own feet and tried to mirror what he was doing, but that only led her to tripping as she tried to catch up. She stepped on his feet a few times too, trying to overcompensate when she thought she was falling behind. She did her best to keep a good humour about it but it was aggravating, not being able to force her body to follow such a simple step.

After the fourth time she stepped on his foot, Nathan seemed to remember something. “Hey Shepard, I’ve been meaning to ask you about what happened after you, Wrex and Tali went through the Conduit in the Mako and landed on the Citadel. I heard you had to suit up and walk along the _outside_ of the elevator shaft to get to the Presidium Tower. Is that true?”

She nodded, a bit thrown by the change of subject. “Sovereign shorted out the power to the elevators,” she explained. “Ours stopped short of—“ she tripped, recovered and continued, “—the Tower.”

“They sent cloned krogan against you, didn’t they?” Kasumi asked. She had partnered up with James and was dancing alongside Shepard and Nathan. Garrus was spinning a flustered Gabby Daniels around the floor and Donnelly had paired off with Traynor. The two of them seemed almost as awkward as Shepard felt. She was not surprised to find that Zaeed was nowhere to be seen.

“Yep,” Shepard replied. “And geth. Lots of geth. Luckily we managed to commandeer a couple of anti-aircraft guns.” She shuffled a bit to readjust her footing, almost tripping again.

Joker laughed from his perch at the counter. “That was awesome. That geth troop transport didn’t stand a chance.”

“You were watching?” Nathan asked, curious. His hand on her back was solid and steady, warm through the cloth of her shirt. It tightened in a very pleasant way every time she stumbled. Each time that happened, she was almost certain he was pulling her in just a tiny bit closer. She wasn’t sure he even realised it. It felt… comfortable. Warm.

“Not live, I was too busy taking down Sovereign,” Joker replied with a cocky smirk. “But all three of them had suit-cams, so I watched it later.”

“ _Dios_ , do you still have the recording?” James asked as he skilfully spun Kasumi around and dipped her with a flourish. “I’d kill to see that.”

“If you ask Alliance Intelligence, of course I didn’t hold on to such classified material after turning the footage over to them. But yes, we can watch it later if you want.”

“Sweet!” James exclaimed.

Shepard glanced at Joker. “You know Alliance Intel doesn’t find you quite as irreverently charming as I do, Joker. If they find out you could get in a lot of trouble.”

He raised his arms in surrender. “Hey, if you want me to delete it, I’ll delete it, Commander. I mean, it’ll hurt my feelings, but I’ll do it…”

She sighed. “Keep it, Joker.”

“Hey, I know,” Kasumi said cheerfully. “Let’s have a movie night tomorrow!”

“This isn’t a summer camp, Kasumi,” Miranda interjected. She had perched herself primly on a stool beside Joker and Chakwas.

“Come on, Miranda, I bet you have some good battle footage stored away as well,” Nathan said hopefully. His forearm was completely encircling her waist now, and her hand on his shoulder had shifted toward his neck. When had that happened?

“Of course I do. But it was collected purely for the purposes of tactical and performance assessment, not for entertainment. After Commander Shepard was brought back, I needed to make sure she was operating at full strategic capacity as well as full fighting fitness.”

Shepard frowned. “I never realised you were filming us on missions, Miranda.”

Miranda appeared surprised. “You didn’t? I mean, of course I would…”

Kasumi interjected, “Tell me you have footage of the mission to free Jack from Purgatory. The stories you all brought back from that one were the best.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Wonderful! I always wanted to see that.”

Nathan was laughing. “You’re quite the action movie star, Shepard,” he teased her. Without warning, he raised her arm up over her head and spun her around, then neatly caught her again, easily slipping his arm back around her waist.

Startled, she grabbed for his shoulder, closing the distance between them for a moment. “Woah! Warn me before you pull something like that,” she protested, glaring up at him. She paused, still frowning. “Wait a second. I didn’t trip over.”

Nathan was grinning. “Nope.”

She looked down at her feet then stared up at him in shock. “How long have we been talking?” she demanded.

“It’s been at least five minutes,” Joker chimed in.

Kasumi was giggling. “Guess what, Shep? You weren’t just dancing, you were _in time_ , too.”

“No way,” she breathed. It was impossible, she had never been able to… They had distracted her with chatter and… other things… and once her mind was off her feet, it had come to her. She stared accusingly at Nathan. “You tricked me.”

His grin grew wider as he nodded cheerfully. “Yep.”

“Shit,” she swore, but she could feel a smile spreading uncontrollably across her face anyway. The others were grinning too, except Miranda, who was rolling her eyes.

“Wow, I think we should call him the Shepard-whisperer,” Joker murmured to Chakwas, who covered a smile with her hand.

Shepard tossed a glare at Joker, but Nathan pulled her forward with him again, prompting her to try and keep up. “Come on, Shepard, keep going,” he urged her. “You’re on a roll!”

Shepard forgot about Joker as she smiled up at her Lieutenant _._ For the next few precious hours there were no Reapers, no impending galactic war, no demanding Admirals, just her crew, her friends, and the man she was falling for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Phew, that was a long one! I rewrote this five times and in the end had to say enough was enough. It just kept growing! I hope you enjoyed it.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Chapter Seventeen**

Nathan hunched over the weapons bench, tools in hand, carefully teasing the insulator wiring of his heavy pistol out of its casing without dislodging the thermal sink. It was mid-morning ship time and he had come down to the cargo bay to get some serious modding done after breakfast, while the _Normandy_ flew towards Tuchanka at FTL. His weapons needed upgrades and he hadn’t had a chance to work on them until now. If he could get his own done quickly, he could start work on the rest of the crew’s as well.

If he was honest with himself, he was still feeling a bit out of place on the _Normandy_. When you came right down to it, compared to Shepard and her crew he was just an ordinary marine grunt. Even Vega, a soldier like Nathan, seemed to have more skill in his little finger than Nathan had in his whole body. He badly wanted to find a way to be more useful. He needed to work on his tech skills, get better at using his omnitool as a weapon, and work on his aim. All of that took time though, whereas he could contribute some handy mods right now.

Despite all that, he was in a hell of a good mood this morning. The party the night before had been a lot of fun. He had felt like he was starting to fit in with the others in a social setting, if not as part of the ground team. As the party got going he had found himself hanging out with Garrus and Vega a lot. The three of them seemed to get along well. They had swapped old war stories and compared kills, Garrus easily beating out Nathan and James in both number and creativity for both topics.

He had also spent some time talking to Miranda. She didn’t open up much – he got the impression it would be very difficult to convince her to do that – but she was very technically inclined so they had a lot to talk about. On top of that, she was a biotic. Biotics fascinated him. He hadn’t met too many human biotics aside from the pair that had been part of his old squad.

He wondered how his squad was doing. When he had last seen them they were all on the Citadel, but a few months after that he had received a message from Sergeant – now Lieutenant – Harris. As Nathan had recommended, Harris had taken over the squad. They had been deployed to Garnerus, a colony on the fringes of the Traverse. He hadn’t heard from any of them since, despite sending messages after boarding the _Normandy_. He hoped they hadn’t been on Earth when the Reapers hit.

He wound the wire up and clipped it into a storage cylinder, then pulled out a new, more heavily insulated length. He began painstakingly winding it around the thermal sink.

He had been having fun talking to other members of the crew, but then Shepard had appeared and instantly made his night a thousand times better. He still couldn’t believe he had actually flirted with her. And that she had _liked_ it! He could still see that smile she had given him, with its combination of surprise, encouragement, and a hint of the most adorable shyness. She had been _shy!_ About flirting with him. Commander Shepard. Shy.

He shook his head, smiling to himself. He couldn’t quite believe that he had managed to elicit that reaction from her. He hadn’t intended to flirt with her – he hadn’t actually managed to work up the nerve yet – but his mouth had moved before his brain could catch up and he had been forced to live with the consequences. He had been certain she would back off again, like she had back in Vancouver, but she hadn’t.

Did that mean she was interested? God he hoped so.

As he worked, he hummed to himself. He had just realised he was humming the song that had been playing when they had started dancing and stopped himself in embarrassment when he heard the elevator doors slide open. He glanced up from his work and nodded at Garrus in greeting, giving him a bright grin. “Morning, Garrus.”

“Briggs. You look like you’re in a good mood,” the turian commented as he made his way over.

“That’s because I am,” Nathan replied cheerfully. “How’s your head?”

Garrus hummed to himself, mandibles twitching. Nathan wished he could read turian expressions, but the best he could do was tell if one was about to punch him. He was pretty sure Garrus wasn’t going to do that. “Not bad, considering. Could be better,” he admitted ruefully. “What are you doing?”

Nathan looped the wire around the cylindrical sink, using his finger to hold it in place. “I’m trying to increase the capacity of the thermal sink. It’ll mean I get more shots out of each clip,” he explained.

“Ah,” Garrus replied. “Good idea. If it works, you’ll have to show me how to do it.”

“Sure,” Nathan replied. He glanced up at the turian. “You must have some good tricks yourself, too.”

Pulling his sniper rifle out from the weapons locker, Garrus brought it over to the opposite side of the weapons bench and laid it down. “I have a couple. I can show you how to graft a thermal imager onto the sights so you can pick hostiles out from behind smoke grenades and the like.”

That sounded incredibly useful. “Hell yeah, show me. I’ll put it on both my rifles.”

“No problem.”

The two of them fell into a companionable silence, Garrus taking apart his rifle and cleaning it while Nathan finished off the thermal capacity mod. The turian was good company. He didn’t feel the need to fill the silence, but still made idle comments from time to time. They had a lot in common. They both fought with tech and weaponry, although Garrus preferred his sniper rifle over the assault rifle. They both preferred the movie Volus Wars 2 over 3 and agreed that the fourth iteration of that particular franchise should never have been made. They had both trained as soldiers from a very young age; although Nathan was surprised to learn he had apparently started earlier than Garrus. And both were scared shitless that the Reapers would wipe them out.

“What do you think our chances are?” Nathan asked as he worked. The mood had turned sombre, although it was a companionable form of it.

“I don’t know,” Garrus replied with a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to say they’re not good. But… millions of people are dying every day. We don’t just have an overwhelming force to go up against, we’ve also got a pretty strict time limit.”

Nathan grimaced. “Do you have family on Palaven?”

A soft keening sound came from the turian’s throat. It reminded Nathan of the sad cries of a lost child. His heart went out to Garrus. “Yes. My father and sister.”

He almost didn’t want to ask. “Have you heard?”

Garrus shook his head. “No.”

Nathan winced, and they both kept working on their projects for a moment. Then Garrus asked the inevitable. “What about you?”

Nathan gritted his teeth. “My mother and father were on Earth.”

“And have you heard from them?”

“No.”

Garrus trilled in sympathy, and Nathan didn’t correct the sentiment. He knew he should be worried about them, that was the correct emotion to be feeling in this circumstance, but he couldn’t bring himself to be. His mother… maybe he could hope she was all right. But his father…

No. His father, he could only feel nothing for. Nothing was better than the hatred he knew he would feel if he allowed himself. And that would make him a monster, wouldn’t it? Especially since the bastard had never actually laid a finger on him, which to his mind meant he had no real justification for feeling that way.

He realised his hands were clenching around his rifle when Garrus laid his own hand on his shoulder. “Briggs. They’ll be all right,” he said.

Even though the turian had completely misunderstood where the tension was coming from, his gesture made Nathan feel a little better. “Thanks, Garrus,” he said. “So will yours.”

Snapping the last catch back into place on his rifle, he cocked it and grunted in satisfaction at the clear sound it made. It would be nice to be able to test it, but he hadn’t yet found a suitable spot on board the _Normandy_. “Garrus, anywhere we can test these?” he asked.

“Hm. Not really. We once set up a firing range along the length of the bay here,” Garrus gestured, indicating the expanse of the shuttle bay from the weapons bench down to the doors at the other end, “but we ran out of things to shoot. Shepard shut it down after that. Didn’t want us to put holes in her ship.”

“Why don’t we set something up now? Looks like there are plenty of empty crates around. We could shoot those,” Nathan suggested.

“Where’s the fun in that? Unless you find it difficult to hit the broadside of a packing crate, which I sincerely hope you don’t.”

Nathan tossed him a glare as he put his rifle away, back in the weapons locker. “Very funny.” Garrus’ mandibles spread in what Nathan thought might be the turian version of a smile. “I do need to work on my overload as well, though. It’s pretty shit at the moment.”

“Okay, send me the hack programme you’re using and I’ll take a look,” Garrus offered.

Nathan cued up the programme on his omnitool and forwarded it to Garrus, who brought it up on screen. He immediately started shaking his head. Nathan raised his eyebrows. “What?” he demanded, craning his head to get a look. “Surely it’s not _that_ bad.”

“Well…” Garrus trailed off. “Okay, no, it’s not that bad. It needs a bit of work though. Kind of like Shepard’s dancing.”

“Hey,” Nathan protested. “Wow. No need to go overboard.”

The turian looked up. “Go where?”

Nathan blinked. “Uh… go overboard. Turians don’t use that saying? It means to go too far.”

“Go too far? Over a board?” Garrus cocked his head to the side, clearly confused.

“No, no.” Nathan shook his head. “ _Overboard._ It’s a saying from a few centuries ago on Earth where the farthest distances were travelled in boats. Over water. If you went overboard, you would be in the water and you could drown.”

Garrus recoiled. “That sounds… violent.”

Nathan made a face. “It’s not meant to be. We humans can swim, so we probably wouldn’t drown. Do turians swim?”

“Spirits, no!”

Nathan laughed. “I understand why you would find that violent then. Sorry to confuse you. I was playing up to your joke about Shepard’s dancing.”

Garrus waved it away, mandibles spreading again. He seemed amused. Nathan was getting better at reading him. “Speaking of Shepard, she seemed very happy after we got her dancing last night. It was nice to see.”

Nathan grinned. “Yeah.”

“And you seemed happy to be dancing with her.”

Garrus’ tone was very mild. Almost too mild. Nathan looked at him suspiciously, shifting his weight to rest his hip against the nearby terminal. “Yeah… it was fun.”

“Do humans normally stare into each other’s eyes so much when they’re just having some fun?”

Nathan crossed his arms over his chest, clearing his throat. “I wasn’t staring into her eyes,” he protested, glaring.

Garrus chuckled. “Sure you weren’t.” He finished entering something into his omnitool then flicked the programme back over to Nathan. “Look, I don’t want to assume anything, but I saw the way you were looking at her.”

“And?” What was he trying to say? Garrus was one of Shepard’s oldest friends; was he getting all protective of her? He liked the turian but he liked Shepard a hell of a lot more. He didn’t really give a shit if Garrus disapproved.

Peripherally Nathan understood he was hiding his unease with defensiveness, but he couldn’t bring himself to overcome that.

“And nothing. I’m not threatening you, Briggs. If you like her, you should go for it.”

Nathan let out a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding, feeling his kneejerk anger dissipate. If Garrus wasn’t going to be an obstacle, perhaps he could be an ally. “She… may have said something encouraging last night,” he revealed. “But I don’t know. She’s my commanding officer, it would be fraternisation. There are regulations. She could get demoted.”

Garrus made a sound that was very similar to a human scoff. “Hackett’s not going to demote _Commander Shepard._ He just promoted her. And besides, do you think he cares about who his soldiers are screwing _now?_ With the Reapers trying to wipe everyone off the face of the galaxy?”

“Maybe that’s true for most soldiers, but not Shepard. Maybe Hackett wouldn’t demote her, but she’s famous, she’s got reporters following her whenever she steps off the ship. She’s a hero. I don’t want to be responsible for dragging her name through the mud,” Nathan argued.

“Except _you_ wouldn’t be. Don’t be an idiot, Briggs. You said she encouraged you. She’s a grown woman, she’s capable of dragging her own name through the mud with no input from you.”

Garrus had a point. She had finally shown him that she might be interested in him just as much as he was in her, and he was trying to… what? Look after her? Protect her from herself? When he thought about it like that, it did sound kind of silly.

He brought up his omnitool and looked through the changes Garrus had made to his code. “Hey, I never would have thought to do some of this stuff. Thanks, Garrus,” he said.

“No problem.”

“And… thanks for the other stuff too,” he added.

Garrus’ mandibles lifted in a turian grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Short, I know. The next one’s a bit longer.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Chapter Eighteen**

Nathan frowned as he studied the packing crate before him, trying to decide where to mark a target. He had elicited Cortez and James’ help to stack a bunch of sturdy crates up against the rear of the cargo hold, then borrowed some insulation tape from Cortez to mark out some targets. He had decided that even if Garrus found shooting at packing crates to be too much like child’s play, he would suck it up, ignore his pride, and take what he could get. His aim needed work and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Vega had agreed to join him after claiming he needed to practice with his sniper rifle – although privately Nathan thought he was either being nice or looking for a chance to show off, although the two weren’t necessarily mutually exclusive with Vega – and Cortez had decided his own shooting needed work if he wanted to keep his firearm certification. They waited at the other end of the shuttle bay, near the terminals.

“Come on, Briggs,” Cortez called. “It doesn’t need to be pretty.”

“It’s gotta be small, though,” Nathan called in reply. “Keep your fucking pants on.” He found himself swearing more and more when he was around Cortez and Vega. Cortez wasn’t a marine but he sure gave people shit like one, although he didn’t stoop to swearing much himself.

He placed the last target then jogged back over to the two men. He grabbed his assault rifle from the rack and gestured for one of them to take the first shot. Vega shook his head. “Nah, _amigo_ , you built it, you go first.”

Nathan shrugged and stepped up, using the gap between the two banks of terminals as a firing line. The day shift had ended half an hour ago and they had made sure the bay was cleared before they began. One of the crates had been set at a height approximating the average human and now had a crudely shaped head and shoulders taped onto it. It was about fifty metres away. Nathan set his rifle in the crook of his shoulder and fired.

All three of his slugs hit the target, scattering around the shoulder area. James nodded. “Not bad.”

The big marine was crouching, using the terminal bank as a bracing surface for his sniper rifle. He took a moment to aim, then fired, the powerful shot cracking through the silence in the empty shuttle bay and slamming into the final target Nathan had placed, a tiny square at the top of the tallest pile of crates.

Cortez whistled. “ _Damn_ , Mr Vega. Nice shot.”

Vega smirked. “What can I say? I’m good.”

“And not an asshole about it at all,” Nathan added, grinning at him. “Come on, Cortez, your turn.”

The shuttle pilot stepped up and raised the pistol, aiming for another of the human-shaped targets. Nathan had set up three of those, along with one turian-sized. So far they hadn’t run into anything volus-sized in the field, so he hadn’t made one of those, and the brutes were like hitting… well, the broad side of a packing crate.

Cortez squeezed off a couple of hesitant shots. It was clear he hadn’t used a gun in a while; both went wide of the target. Nathan didn’t say anything, though, just watched and waited. Sure enough, after taking a quick second to readjust, Cortez fired again and this time managed to hit a leg and a hip. He smiled in wry relief. “Yeah, it’s been a while.”

Nathan clapped him on the shoulder and moved forward to take his turn.

The three of them kept at it for a while, rotating positions and trying different weapons. Nathan found he wasn’t quite as rusty with a sniper rifle as he had thought, although he wasn’t as accurate as Vega. To add insult to injury, however, the big man excelled with the assault rifle. His accuracy approached Shepard’s freakish perfection. Somehow he was able to cluster all three rounds of a burst within centimetres of one another, and usually square on the target outline’s forehead. Nathan shook his head at that and vowed to keep practicing.

Cortez didn’t come close to approaching either of them in terms of accuracy, but then he didn’t need to. He practiced a bit, but mostly made idle conversation while they worked.

James and Cortez left for the first round of dinner, but Nathan decided to wait for the second in favour of continuing his practice. He was getting better, but still didn’t feel like he was at the standard he needed to be. He knew it wouldn’t be possible to get _that_ much better in a single session, but he had to start somewhere.

He switched back to his assault rifle when James and Cortez left. He found himself falling into a rhythm as he aimed his fire at the targets one by one, ending with the turian target. All the crates were looking a little worse for wear now, but the outlines were still visible. He could _almost_ imagine it was a marauder he was shooting at. _Reaper pricks._ He aimed a burst at where he thought the fringe would be, but his shots flew over its head instead. He grumbled to himself and loosened his grip on the rifle, rolling his shoulder.

“You’re not absorbing the kickback as well as you could be,” came a voice from behind him.

He turned, lowering the rifle, to find Shepard leaning against one of the pillars. She was in full BDUs, hair in its usual bun. He smiled at her almost involuntarily in greeting as he swapped the rifle to his left hand and saluted her. _Beautiful._ He always found himself smiling when he saw her. She flipped him a quick salute and a smile of her own. “Keep going,” she encouraged him. “Show me your stance.”

Feeling a little self-conscious now, he moved back into position at the firing line and brought the rifle up as if ready to fire. The last thing he wanted to do was look incompetent in front of her. She pushed off the pillar and came forward, studying him critically. He almost cracked a joke about her checking out his ass, but decided against it. So far she was sounding more like she was giving him some impromptu training than wanting to have a casual chat. He decided he would stick to military protocol until he found out otherwise.

“Loosen your knees a bit more to absorb the recoil,” she instructed. She took a few steps off to the side and nodded at him to fire. He squeezed the trigger, trying to let his knees bend a bit more than he normally would. He hit the target, but it still wasn’t precisely where he had been aiming. “Don’t grip the rifle so tightly, it’s not going anywhere,” she added, sounding almost conversational. He shot again, surprised to see a bit of improvement this time. “Good. That was better.”

He was careful not to let it show on his face, but inwardly he all but glowed at the praise. He had always been a sucker for praise, but when it was coming from Shepard it felt even better. She wasn’t treating him like a green recruit either, which he appreciated no end. He shot again, and again, trying to maintain the improvement. After a few bursts Shepard held up a hand. “Stop,” she said.

She ducked into reach directly in front of him, gripping the rifle with both hands. She readjusted it none too gently against his shoulder, just as his old training sergeant from basic would have, so it was slightly closer to his cheek. Despite the rough move, though, and completely unlike his old grizzled training sergeant, he couldn’t help but notice how close she was and how much of an effect it had on him. He could reach out and touch her without even having to stretch. He caught a vague hint of warm honey in the air, mixed with the heat of her skin, and it almost made his mouth water.

When she was done she made to step back, but hesitated a moment. She hadn’t met his eyes as she came in close, but now she did. Her eyes were soft and thoughtful as she studied him. Was he having the same effect on her that she was having on him? He did his best to avoid getting lost in those ocean-blue depths, lest he completely forget how to hold his weapon.

She stood there for so long that he almost lowered the rifle and reached for her. But she finally seemed to shake herself slightly before moving away, standing off to one side again. His hands tingled. “Fire,” she ordered. He was almost certain he heard her voice catch, just slightly.

He aimed and shot, trying to absorb the kickback with knees that were suddenly a little less steady than they were before. He didn’t even hit the right crate.

_Dammit, all she did was stand there!_

He glanced at her to find an eyebrow raised in surprise. He flushed. “Okay. That wasn’t great,” he admitted.

“Yeah, not great,” she agreed. He winced. “You were doing fine before, though. What changed?”

Did she really not know how much of an effect she had on him?

Maybe it was time he told her. Gathering his courage he admitted in a rush, “You distracted me.”

She frowned, appearing concerned. “I did? What did I do?”

Or maybe he could show her instead. He set the rifle down, firmly swallowing his nerves, and took a couple of steps toward her. She watched him warily. “You did…” He deliberately stepped in close, a little closer than she had come to adjust his grip on the rifle. It left a bare few inches between them, less in certain areas. She had to tilt her head up to keep her eyes on his face, but she didn’t back away. He kept his hands resolutely by his side and sought her eyes with his own, before finishing his sentence. “…this.”

He watched as her eyes widened slightly, chest rising almost imperceptibly as she breathed. He was close enough to feel her body heat again, smell that mixture of warm honey and _Shepard_. He wanted badly to run his eyes down the length of her gorgeous body, drink in those beautiful curves, but she hadn’t done that to him and he was trying to prove a point. Instead he kept his eyes locked with hers, letting the multitude of subtle shifts and refractions he had resisted before draw him in.

She drew in a deeper breath and murmured, “Oh.”

Just that little sound was too much for him. He forgot all about the point he was trying to prove and lifted a hand to her cheek, waiting for her to tell him to stop but _hoping_ she wouldn’t. He stroked her skin gently with the pads of his fingers, running his thumb lightly over her cheekbone. Before he could second-guess himself he leant down and brushed his lips against hers.

His heart almost stopped. Her lips were achingly soft. He let his fingers drift over the hair above her ear to trace her hairline all the way to the back of her neck, then laid his palm against the side of her neck and buried his fingers in the smooth hair at the base of her bun. Her eyelids fluttered shut. His heart had jolted into action again and he could feel his heart try and thud its way out of his chest as he kissed her. Meanwhile his mind desperately tried to catch up with the rest of him.

_Holy shit are you fucking nuts you’re going to get transferred or tossed out the airlock even if she did flirt with you last night you must have read it wrong she couldn’t possibly she’s Commander fucking Shepard there’s no way shut up and kiss her--_

He caught his breath as he felt the light pressure of her hand on his abdomen. It made its way up to his chest as her lips moved on his, gently testing, _reciprocating_. She found his shoulder at the same time he slid his other hand around her waist, pulling her body in against his. His arm moulded with the curve of her waist perfectly. _She_ moulded with _him_ perfectly. Her other arm snaked up to rest on his chest, right above his heart. He could feel it when he breathed.

Her breasts were pressed up against his chest too, now, and he could feel their softness whenever he moved. His pants were becoming noticeably tighter. He let the kiss grow deeper and slipped the tip of his tongue into her mouth.

The elevator pinged.

With a throaty gasp, Shepard pulled herself away. She stepped back, eyes a little wild as she clasped her hands behind her back, then changed her mind and leant against one of the terminals. He didn’t have a spare moment to enjoy how off-balance she looked. He spun around, searching for his rifle, and found it laying on the bench next to a terminal. He grasped it like a lifeline, trying to look as though he was examining it for… something. Intently.

He heard boots on the deck suddenly snapping to attention, followed by Shepard’s surprisingly steady voice. “Rogers,” she greeted the arriving crewmember.

“Evening, ma’am,” the young shuttle mechanic replied.

“As you were,” Shepard dismissed him, somehow managing to use that veiled steel _Commander_ voice despite what they had been doing moments before.

Nathan felt a rush of heat in his belly as the sound of boots receded. She sounded _hot_ when she used the Commander voice. He edged a little closer to the waist-high terminal, watching out of the corner of his eye as Rogers made his way over to one of the shuttles. The kid was soon busying himself with the shuttle, paying no attention to either him or the commander.

“That was some good work, Briggs,” Shepard told him, voice even. He wasn’t sure whether she was referring to the shooting or the kiss. He hoped for the latter. “Keep practicing and you’ll get even better.”

_Keep practicing, huh?_ He fought a grin. That was _definitely_ about the kiss. “Don’t worry, Commander, I will.”

He couldn’t turn around just yet. He heard her boots on the deck, followed by the elevator’s chime. She was gone.

He let out a breath, willing his body to calm down so he could move away from the goddamn terminal without embarrassing himself.

 

* * *

 

Shepard stared at her personal terminal without seeing the screen. The CIC was quiet; aside from the night shift skeleton crew she had it to herself. Most of the rest of the crew were down in the mess eating dinner or dispersed throughout the crew areas enjoying their downtime. She had taken her meal in her quarters, ostensibly so she could keep working, but really because she needed some time to herself to think.

It had been about an hour since Nathan had kissed her in the shuttle bay, and she still didn’t regret it. Not even a little. It had been good. _Really_ good. His hands, his lips, his arm holding her tightly around the waist… his tongue in her mouth… She shook off a pleasant little shiver.

Her brain was still going at a mile a minute, though. It hadn’t felt like just some random spontaneous tension relief. They had _started_ something. Where did they go from here? Would they go anywhere at all? He had seemed to want to. Had she misread that? What if he just wanted a fling? What if he wanted more? What exactly did _she_ want?

She shook her head. Thinking two steps ahead of her adversary was a very useful talent on the battlefield but Nathan wasn’t an adversary. It would do her no good to start worrying about things that might not happen in _this_ situation. She would find out what he was thinking by just _talking_ to him. Like a normal person would.

She almost snorted. Normal. Ha. Her life had been anything but normal ever since she set foot on the _Normandy_ SR-1. No—since before that. Since Akuze. Could she even do ‘normal’?

She would have to try. With a moment’s clarity, she knew she didn’t just want some casual fling.

What would a normal person do, then? Someone who didn’t have to worry about making sure a ship full of people arrived safely and on time to its next destination in the middle of a war?

She shook her head and took a deep breath. She couldn’t try to be a normal person just yet, then. Getting the _Normandy_ to Tuchanka safely and on time was currently her most pressing concern.

She moved over to the galaxy map to check on their progress. The tiny little _Normandy_ icon was drawing nearer to the relay that would take them to the Krogan DMZ cluster, and Tuchanka itself was only a few hours out from the DMZ relay. All in all, they probably had about nine hours of travel to go. They would arrive at 0300 ship’s time, which translated to 1100 Tuchanka time.

If she put off their arrival for a couple of extra hours the crew would be in much better shape to go planetside, and that wouldn’t bother Wrex. She sent the order through to the helm and shortly after received an acknowledgement from Joker’s relief pilot, First Lieutenant Carter. She knew she couldn’t actually feel the slight deceleration but she could almost trick herself into thinking she could.

The fact that it hadn’t been Joker replying but his relief reminded her that he and all the other original SR-1 and SR-2 crewmembers were probably in Port Observation getting comfortable for Kasumi’s movie night. She had debated whether or not to go along, but in the end decided that even if they were going to watch vids of her past missions, which would no doubt be uncomfortable, she still wanted to spend time with her crew. Her friends. Relaxing and, well, doing what normal people did. She had finished her planning for now, anyway. All she was doing was staring at an empty screen.

She returned to her cabin to grab a quick shower. Afterward she changed into fatigues and an old, comfy black N7 shirt. As she pulled her hair into a loose over-the-shoulder tail she reflected that it actually felt good to step out from under the extra bars her new rank granted her and replace them with the familiar N7 designation. She had told Garrus that it didn’t make a difference what rank she held, but that was only partially true. There was something about having the word ‘Lieutenant’ in front of ‘Commander’ that had acted almost like a safety net. Now she had huge responsibilities in name as well as in spirit. The safety net had been removed.

She made her way down to Port Observation and palmed the door open onto a darkened room. The shutter had been closed and a screen projected onto it from an overhead camera. Shepard didn’t see any omnitools; she wondered if EDI was involved in this as well and had commandeered one of the ship’s cameras for them to use as a projector. The seating in the room had been rearranged, the couches dragged into a loose semi-circle around the screen and the chairs from the poker table pulled out into the main area.

There were a lot of people there. It wasn’t just the old _Normandy_ crew; she also spotted Sergeant Chan, crewman Taschev, and crewman Rogers as well as a couple more people she recognised from engineering. Thankfully they seemed to be settling in a little more; at least no one tried to get up to salute her this time. In fact, as she stood in the doorway someone spoke up with a touch of annoyance, “Don’t just stand there, you’re letting in all the light!” She hid a smile as she spotted one of the engineers’ heads bob up to cast a glare in her direction. He blinked when he saw who he had just glared at. “Uh, sorry Commander,” he added, looking a bit sheepish.

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it,” she replied, stepping inside and letting the door shut behind her. A couple of heads turned at the sound of her voice but no one made a big deal about her presence, which she was grateful for.

Searching for a free seat, she spotted Nathan sprawling obnoxiously across the entirety of one of the corner couches. There was easily room for two there. No doubt he had done that on purpose. She smothered a smile.

She dodged around the other seated crewmembers, almost tripping over Garrus’ long legs and catching herself before she stumbled against the back of Nathan’s couch. “Sorry,” she whispered to Garrus, feeling the back of her neck heat up slightly. The turian gave her a quick pat on the shoulder in commiseration.

Nathan was already moving out of the way to give her room, stretching his legs out along the long edge of the couch and spreading his arms along the back. _Subtle, Nathan._ She sat down next to him, maybe a little closer than was really necessary, but she was sure it was nothing that wouldn’t seem to onlookers like she was just being friendly.

As she settled, he cast her a questioning look. In his eyes she saw caution, a significant amount of uncertainty and a glint of hope. He was trying to find out where they stood, she guessed. They would have to talk about it properly later, but for now looks would have to do. She met his eyes with a smile and a steady gaze of her own, trying to convey that they were fine and she didn’t regret anything.

If the relieved smile was anything to go by, he seemed to understand. She turned her attention to the screen, where the camera was bobbing along through what looked like some sort of cargo storage area, following a figure in black armour. She recognised herself in the basic N7 armour Cerberus had given her. “What did I miss?” she asked him quietly. When she spotted the Shuriken SMG held up by arms covered in white reinforced leather she realised they had to be watching Miranda’s cam, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out where she and Miranda were.

“We’ve already watched the Omega missions, now we’re on to Purgatory,” Nathan told her quietly.

“Oh, right,” she murmured.

“You didn’t know that?”

“I’ve fought my way through a hell of a lot of cargo areas, Briggs.”

Now that he mentioned Purgatory, this particular cargo area was starting to look familiar. If she remembered correctly, there would be an ambush coming up right about…

The view on the screen darted to one side momentarily as Miranda ducked into cover. It then centred on the onscreen version of Shepard, who had found her own cover, while catching a peripheral glimpse of Garrus. Onscreen Shepard lifted a hand and indicated where she wanted Garrus and Miranda to go. Her order was followed with a terse ‘Got it,’ from Garrus and a ‘Moving,’ from Miranda, and Miranda’s cam moved again as she ranged out to cover the right flank.

Shepard found it disconcerting watching herself issue instructions to her squadmates from a distance, as though it was an action movie. She had seen vids of herself on the battlefield before but she had always watched them with a view to improving on her tactics and performance rather than just for entertainment’s sake. The occasional laughs and cheers from the crew surrounding her sounded strange to her ears.

A near miss that impacted right at eye level and had Miranda slamming herself hard back into the cover of a mechanical lifter had the crew gasping and making dramatic ‘ooh, close’ noises. Shepard winced as she spotted the shield indicator on the HUD Miranda had helpfully patched in to the camera feed. It was sitting at a solid two percent. If that shot had hit… She hadn’t realised Miranda had come that close to actually dying that day. She sought Miranda out in the crowd and found her speaking softly to Kasumi. She didn’t seem too shaken up, but then Miranda was always good at viewing a situation objectively. Shepard shifted in her seat uncomfortably.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and glanced over at Nathan. He was watching her with a concerned expression. “You okay?” he whispered.

“I’m fine,” she replied, schooling her face back to neutrality. He looked dubious but didn’t press the issue and withdrew his hand. He could be damned perceptive when he wanted to be, at least when it came to her.

The vid moved on into a large room with two bridges. Shepard remembered this one; it had been tricky to navigate tactically, especially when an YMIR mech had shown up. She watched as Miranda again took the right flank, while the onscreen Shepard and Garrus fought their way down to the supports of the first bridge and took cover there.

“Can I ask a question about tactics, or are we just having fun here?” Nathan asked, leaning over toward her.

Shepard _liked_ tactical problems. She didn’t think the two were mutually exclusive. And besides, it would be a very well-timed distraction. “We can’t do both?”

“Well, I guess, but you‘re buried in tactics all day,” he explained. “I didn’t think you’d want to talk about it off duty as well.”

She smiled. Thoughtful. “I like strategy. Go ahead.”

“That bridge has both cover and height. Why not send your sniper up there?”

She didn’t have to think too hard to remember her reasoning; after all, it was laid out on the screen in front of her. “Firstly, the bridge is narrow and the cover is only there in one direction. If Garrus got flanked there’d be nowhere for him to go.”

“Oh. Shit, yeah,” Nathan muttered, frowning at the screen.

“Second, look at what the bridge floor is made of.”

He squinted. “That’s a pretty wide grid pattern.” He glanced at her, seeming to follow along with her thought process. “But you’d be under the bridge, so none of them could get in close enough to shoot up at Garrus.”

“But if I was forced to pull back…”

Nathan nodded in understanding. “There’d be nowhere for Garrus to go without being exposed.”

“Right,” she confirmed, watching as the squad onscreen advanced forward. Garrus remained behind under the bridge while she and Miranda moved into the next cover.

“Okay, now Garrus is all by himself a long way away from you and Miranda,” Nathan commented. “He could get flanked there too.”

She shook her head. “But he won’t. Why?” She looked over at him expectantly.

Nathan stared up at the screen, brow furrowing as he thought about it. Finally he replied, “Garrus and Miranda have overlapping fields of fire along the single approach to his position. And you can turn and back them up if needed while still remaining in cover.”

She smiled. “Good. But you know what they say about plans surviving contact with the enemy. What does Garrus do if he _does_ get flanked?”

Shepard glanced back over her shoulder as Garrus himself leaned over the back of their couch. “Yes, Briggs, what does Garrus do?” he asked.

Nathan glanced from Garrus back to Shepard. “Garrus rolls over to the other side of the bridge to give himself some distance and ducks around the end, where he can fire back on the flanker.” Shepard grinned and nodded. Nathan matched her grin with a sly one as he turned back to Garrus. “And in the absence of a gold star, Garrus gets me a bowl of those cracker-things Chan made. Right?”

Garrus cocked his head to the side. “Gold star?”

Shepard shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, Garrus. It’s a human thing.”

“When you’re a kid in school you get a gold star if you get the right answer in a test,” Nathan explained anyway.

“Oh. So… I’m the teacher and you’re the child? Wait… are you calling yourself a child? Isn’t it an insult for an adult human to be called a child?”

Shepard covered a laugh. Nathan looked surprised. “Yeah, it is,” she confirmed cheerfully. Nathan gave her a dirty look, poking her in the side. She grinned at him.

Garrus chuckled. “I’ll get you your snacks, kid. I need another beer anyway. Want anything, Shepard?”

“A beer. Thanks, Garrus.”

Garrus returned with her beer and Nathan’s snacks as well as his own bowl of dextro crackers. She and Garrus spent the next few vids quietly discussing strategy with Nathan while they all drank their beers and ate the snacks Chan had provided. She found herself surprised but impressed by Nathan’s quick grasp of the concepts as well as his obvious interest in the subject. She wondered if that had been picked up by whoever had nominated him for N school.

The three of them continued talking long after the final vid – Thane’s recruitment – had ended and the rest of the crew had left. Finally Garrus left too, leaving Shepard alone with Nathan.

She knew she would have to be up in only a few hours, but as soon as the turian left the room she found her eyes drawn to his almost immediately. Her skin practically tingled as he shifted closer and reached out to smooth some hair back behind her ear. “So… you mentioned something about practice earlier, Commander,” he drawled.

“I did,” she agreed. “Although I could have sworn I was talking about assault rifles at the time.”

She leaned in and kissed him, almost melting into a puddle on the couch when her lips met his. God, he tasted so good. She slid her arms loosely around his neck and pressed her body up against the hard lines of his chest and thigh. He let the arm that had lain along the back of the couch fall down around her shoulders as he returned the kiss.

She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his chest, enjoying the feel of the heavy muscles beneath his shirt. His hands shifted to her face and he pulled her closer, running his tongue lightly over her bottom lip. She opened her mouth and met his tongue with hers, languorously caressing. She tucked a leg up underneath herself and half-kneeled to get a better angle, returning one hand to his shoulder and using the other to delve into his soft hair.

He gently nipped her bottom lip and before she could stop it, she let out an involuntary sound that reminded her far too much of a giggle. Her eyes flew open, mortified. Of course he had a huge grin on his face. “Did you just…”

“No!” she told him emphatically.

He cocked his head to the side, then kissed her again, sliding his hands down the length of her body to rest on her hips. His grin didn’t fade as he caught her bottom lip lightly with his teeth then let go. “I think you did.”

Goddamn him and his teasing! And his goddamn hands! “Of course I didn’t,” she protested. “I’m a marine! Marines don’t do… _that_.”

“Uh huh.” He gripped her by the hips and neatly pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist. He leaned up to kiss her again. Shepard felt her embarrassment fade away as her lips moved on his. He tasted vaguely of coffee and beer. She idly wondered where the coffee had come from.

She stayed comfortably encircled in his arms, kissing him and being thoroughly kissed, for what felt like nowhere near enough time before she had to reluctantly pull away. It was getting late, and they would be at Tuchanka early tomorrow morning. She rested her forehead on his. He was holding her close and her arms were back draped around his neck. She could have happily stayed right where she was for much longer, but she didn’t have the luxury of that right now. “We need to be up in a few hours,” she murmured. “You’re coming planetside with me.”

He seemed to sober up. “Right. Tuchanka.” She saw the realisation that they would soon be back to work dawn in his eyes and an invisible weight settled onto her own shoulders. Impulsively she found his lips with hers again. One last long, slow kiss. For now.

She finally stood up, pulling him up after her. They still hadn’t talked, but there was no time for that now. At least she had made perfectly sure he knew the attraction between them was mutual.

She squeezed his hand, then let go and carefully straightened her hair and clothing. It was very unlikely she would run into anyone between Port Observation and the elevator but it was always best to be prepared. He took the cue and did the same.

“Good night, Lieutenant,” she said, reaching up to smooth down a tuft of his unruly hair.

His smile this time was all affection, no teasing. “Good night, Commander.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AO3: And now we're caught up to fanfiction.net! There is much more to come, but updates here will follow the same schedule as over there. I try to post every week on a Friday night, barring complications. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy!


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Chapter Nineteen**

Nathan leaned up against the side of the Kodiak, idly examining his pistol for marks and damage while he waited. Both he and Zaeed would be going groundside on Tuchanka with Shepard and Garrus, who would be holding talks with the krogan clan leader, Urdnot Wrex. He couldn’t help but notice the amount of muscle the commander had gathered for this supposed diplomatic mission. Garrus was in full armour as well; with him and Shepard herself they would be four weaponry specialists with a little tech thrown in. It wasn’t the most balanced ground team. Was she expecting trouble of a particular sort?

Shepard herself had yet to arrive. In fact, she was bordering on late, which was unusual for her. It had been a struggle for him to pull himself out of bed after only a few hours of sleep but he had managed it. She seemed to have far more personal discipline than he did; he wouldn’t have thought it would be too hard for her. Nathan wondered what was keeping her. He hoped she wasn’t having nightmares again. He was about to go and look for her when she finally appeared, stepping out of the elevator and striding across the shuttle bay in full dress uniform, royal blue jacket panelled with black leather and right arm decorated with the deep red stripe unique to those who had earned the N7 designation, royal blue trousers, cap with its leather-covered brim and all.

She looked good – but then, he thought she looked good in everything. He allowed himself a moment to admire the way the jacket lined the curve of her hips, then brought his mind sternly back to business. Dress uniform meant this was definitely a diplomatic mission. So why were he, Garrus and Zaeed in full armour?

Zaeed spoke up first after clearly having the same thoughts, gruff voice sounding dubious. “You look nice and all, Shepard, very goddamn pretty, but you’re a bit under-dressed. You’ve got nowhere near enough guns.”

She tossed him a dubious look at his use of the word “pretty” to describe her and fidgeted, smoothing the jacket down and resettling the cap on her neatly bound hair. In his years as a marine he hadn’t found too many people that could pull off that cap, but somehow she managed it despite how uncomfortable she looked. Nathan noticed someone had adjusted the rank bars on her shoulders from those of a Lieutenant Commander to a full Commander, too. Idly he wondered who on the ship could sew. “It’s a diplomatic mission, Zaeed,” she explained. “I’m the official envoy. You boys are my escort.” She glanced at Garrus. “Except Garrus. He’s representing the Turian Hierarchy and he doesn’t have a uniform.”

Nathan looked from Zaeed back to Shepard. “In that case, I’m feeling a bit _over-_ dressed in this armour.”

Shepard motioned toward the shuttle, indicating for them to board. “Krogan respect power and strength more than politics. As an official Alliance envoy I’m required to be in dress uniform. So I demonstrate my power and strength in other ways.”

Nathan stifled a chuckle and raised his hand. “I call strength. You can be power, Zaeed.”

The mercenary cast a derisive look in his direction. “What are you on about, boy?”

“Ignore him, Zaeed,” Shepard interjected. Although her tone didn’t betray any amusement, Nathan spotted a smile twitching at her lips as she took a seat next to him. Garrus was last onboard; he closed the hatch and banged on the cockpit door to signal Cortez to get going.

It didn’t take long for them to be airborne. As the shuttle descended through Tuchanka’s atmosphere the monitor displayed a stark and unforgiving vista. Nathan could see no greenery anywhere, just sand, stone and ruined buildings. Even the sky was a dull yellow.

After the ruined and burning vistas of Earth and Palaven it seemed beyond beautiful to him.

Eventually they reached an enormous concrete silo, into which they flew. The shuttle descended quickly through the sparsely lit shadowy tube, taking them dozens of metres underground.

They disembarked onto a railed concrete landing pad, immediately coming face to face with a group of three hulking krogan. All three carried shotguns unholstered, but none were pointed at the new arrivals. Nathan didn’t know much about the krogan, but he decided to take that as a positive.

Shepard stepped forward, her height and lack of armour contrasting sharply with the tall, bulky armoured figures surrounding her. Nathan marvelled at the fact that she somehow managed not to appear out of place.

One of the krogan jerked his head in the direction of a ramp leading down from the landing pad. “Commander Shepard. Follow us. Wrex is this way.”

Nathan hadn’t really expected a red carpet, refreshments and a parade of dignitaries, but he had thought an official visit from an Alliance envoy – particularly a war hero like Commander Shepard – would warrant a little more than the equivalent of ‘hey you, leader is over there’. It had to be a cultural thing. He fell in behind Shepard and Garrus, with Zaeed taking the other flank. He wondered if he should draw his gun so he matched the stances of their welcoming committee, but quickly discarded that thought. Probably not a good idea.

The three krogan led them down a ramp, through a wide hatchway and over a steep mound of rubble before they reached an underground open area. Nathan managed to catch himself before tripping over a particularly jutting piece of concrete. He now understood that there had been practical considerations for Shepard’s choice of dress pants over dress skirt. Heels and stockings came with the skirt; he doubted they would have lasted long in the current environment.

He looked out over the open area, which resembled the crumbling basement of a large building. At the far end a pair of huge ground vehicles stood near a shuttered garage door. He had never seen their like before, although they reminded him of an inflated version of the old M35 Mako. A group of krogan milled nearby, surrounding a sunken pit. Nathan couldn’t make out what they were doing.

At the nearer end, closer to where they entered, more krogan gathered around a raised platform on which sat a tall concrete chair. The chair reminded Nathan vividly of a throne. One krogan sat on this “throne”. His armour was a dark rusty red to match the plate covering his forehead, which was scored by three deep gouges. As he caught sight of their little group, he got to his feet and bellowed clear across the room. “Shepard!”

The krogan stomped down from his dais to reach Shepard, who strode forward to meet him half way. The krogan’s leathery lips stretched over his teeth in what Nathan hoped was a smile, not a snarl. As soon as he was within reach of Shepard he grabbed her hand and shook it violently, clapping her on the shoulder with what looked to be enough force to push her over had he not been holding onto her with his other hand. Nathan winced. Surely that had to have hurt.

Shepard didn’t show any signs of discomfort, however, and her tone when she spoke was nothing short of delighted. “Wrex! Careful, I’m not in armour, you know.”

The krogan seemed a bit taken aback. “Oh. Sorry,” he grumbled, and patted her shoulder again, this time more gently.

She laughed. “Don’t worry about it. It’s good to see you, Wrex,” she said.

“You too, Shepard.” He eyed her uniform. “What is _that_?”

“It’s a uniform, Wrex. It’s protocol. You’re supposed to be impressed.”

Wrex snorted. “You look soft, Shepard. Squishy. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Aw, now you’ve hurt my feelings,” she told him cheerfully.

“This ‘summit’ is off to a good start, then,” he replied, equally jovial. “Come on.” Nathan found himself taking an instant liking to Urdnot Wrex.

He led them past the dais and the gathered krogan into a smaller, enclosed room. It was made of yet more concrete, but gashes in the ceiling allowed swathes of sunlight to shine onto the floor below. The effect was warm and almost welcoming, or at least the krogan version of welcoming. Nathan was starting to see that the ideas of comfort and beauty didn’t really mesh with the krogan psyche. Although he did note that he hadn’t yet spotted any female krogan. Was this an area set aside for males? And if so, would the area for females be different? He had no idea how krogan society worked, beyond the occasional news story about some mad scientist or other claiming to be close to a cure for the genophage.

A number of chairs – concrete, of course – had been set around a large, heavy table. The table was slightly lop-sided and made of some kind of metal covered in generous patches of rust. Wrex took a seat on one side of the table and waved a hand toward the other side, indicating Shepard should take a chair near one of the rust-free areas. Garrus sat beside her, leaving Nathan and Zaeed to take up position unobtrusively against the wall behind the two envoys.

Shepard removed her cap and set it on the table before her, then leaned forward on her elbows. “Here’s where I’m supposed to say a bunch of flowery words about the Alliance, and how having us as an ally is going to be the best thing you ever did. I’m more than happy to skip past that crap if you are, Wrex,” she said bluntly.

Nathan blinked. Not… exactly how he pictured a diplomatic negotiation to begin.

Wrex seemed pleased though. “Ha. Very happy. I know why you’re really here. And why Vakarian is here.” Poor Garrus had hardly been noticed until now, but he seemed to be accustomed to letting Shepard do all the talking.

“Oh? Why are we here?” Shepard asked mildly.

“You need a krogan army to help take back Palaven.”

She sat back in her seat with a satisfied smirk. “You’re well-informed.”

“I got word a couple of days ago that the Reapers had attacked Palaven. And that it was bad.” Wrex turned to Garrus. “Sorry, Vakarian.” Garrus inclined his head in acknowledgement and Wrex turned back to Shepard. “You too, Shepard. I heard about Earth.”

“Both Palaven and Earth are in bad shape,” Shepard replied grimly. “We can’t do anything about Earth right now. But we _can_ take back Palaven, with your help.”

“Hm. Even with a krogan army on the ground, the turian fleet won’t be enough to fight them in space,” Wrex warned.

Shepard nodded. “I know. Hackett is going to lend me the third fleet. And—“

Wrex grunted in laughter. “That’s generous,” he commented. “Is he going to wrap it up in a bow for you too?”

“Ha ha, Wrex. He likes me,” Shepard replied nonchalantly. Nathan could hear the sly humour in her voice. “Probably because I know how to kill Reapers.”

The krogan’s laughter dissipated and he eyed her from across the table. “You mean without needing an entire fleet for each Reaper?”

“Just a very good pilot with a thanix cannon.”

Wrex grumbled appreciatively low in his chest. “You found a weakness.” Shepard smiled and inclined her head. “That changes things. I came here ready to turn you down, Shepard. We’re starting to see Reaper scouting parties on Tuchanka. I can’t afford to send my people off to fight a losing battle when Tuchanka is in danger. But now… hm.” He sat back in his chair, thinking.

“We’ll need a lot of krogan, Wrex,” Shepard warned him, deadly serious now. “Many _will_ die. Tuchanka would have to be left all but defenceless in the meantime. But I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t think we could win.”

Garrus leaned forward. “If we can push the Reapers off Palaven the turian fleet will be free to aid both Earth and Tuchanka.”

“You trying to create some kind of galactic coalition?” Wrex asked.

Shepard glanced at Garrus and shrugged. “Not in so many words. But… we’ll all be wiped out if we don’t band together.”

No matter how well he knew that, the offhand statement still sent a chill through Nathan’s bones. _Wiped out._ There was no nice way to say they were all facing extinction. He was fighting in a war for his race’s very survival. He shifted his weight, hoping Wrex would see that too.

He didn’t have to wait long. “I’m in,” the krogan said gravely. “You’ll have the krogan.”

Shepard paused, cautious. “Just like that? No negotiations? No demands?”

“I was with you on Virmire when you first spoke to Sovereign, Shepard, and I’ve seen the reports of what the Reapers are doing now. It’s going to be a hell of a fight but we _can’t_ let them win. Particularly not now.”

Shepard’s head cocked slightly to the side. “Why particularly not now?”

Wrex shoved himself to his feet. “Follow me. I’ll show you.”

Shepard and Garrus followed Wrex, and Nathan and Zaeed fell in behind them. The krogan battlemaster led them across the compound, striding confidently through the cluster of krogan milling around the throne. Shepard spoke up when they drew near the exit leading to the shuttle pad. “If this is another rogue clan or a thresher maw I’m going to need my armour,” she warned mildly.

_Rogue clan? Thresher maw?_ Nothing like that had been in the vids at movie night. Nathan made a mental note to ask Kasumi and Miranda about the last time Shepard and her crew were on Tuchanka when he returned to the ship.

“Ha. We don’t need you to fight our battles anymore, Shepard,” Wrex told her. “You won’t need armour.” He skirted around the edge of the pit Nathan had spotted before. Yelps and snarls issued from within. Nathan took the opportunity to take a look inside as they passed. Two varren fought viciously in the centre while the surrounding krogan cheered and placed bets. He grimaced and looked away.

Wrex singled out one of the spectators and nodded toward the two Mako-like vehicles by the shuttered garage door. The krogan lumbered ahead of them and climbed into one. Soon after, its engine roared to life. Wrex ushered them inside.

The journey was a long, bumpy one. There were no windows, but the truck had screens in the passenger compartment showing the view outside, similar to the Kodiak. Nathan watched as they sped along wide but crumbling roads, occasionally having to detour around particularly deteriorated stretches of pavement. Eventually the truck descended into a tunnel leading underground, and Nathan could see nothing on the monitors aside from the occasional dim light on the tunnel wall.

Wrex was tight-lipped about what he was taking them to see. Shepard pressed him about his earlier statement that he no longer needed her help, asking about clan strength and unity, but he gave her noncommittal answers and smugly told her to wait and see. Nathan could tell he was excited – and maybe a little bit smug – about whatever awaited them at the end of this journey.

When they finally rolled to a stop it was in a small, nondescript garage. They all climbed out and Wrex guided them over to an even more nondescript door. Nathan noted, however, that this innocuous door required Wrex to pass what appeared to be a DNA scan before it opened. The advanced technology stood out. It was completely at odds with everything else he had seen on Tuchanka.

Before he let them through, Wrex turned to Shepard. Gravely, he said, “This is the future of the krogan.” He stepped through the door, and they followed.

The door opened onto an immense gallery. A wide thoroughfare extended out before them, lined with at least five stories of balconies carved directly from a darker, richer rock than anything Nathan had seen before on Tuchanka. The balconies were illuminated by covered lamps and decorated with bold swirls of black and ochre-coloured paint. Nathan sucked in a breath. The effect was earthy and tribal, but beautiful, and it was only accentuated by the rich green vines crawling along the balcony walls. He had been starting to think that Tuchanka was all but dead, that nothing green would grow here anymore. He was glad to be proven wrong.

Krogan of all shapes and sizes went about their business, paying no attention to the new arrivals. Some wore armour, but their numbers were few and they were mostly confined to what looked to be guard positions along the walls. Most wore long robes in a variety of muted colours. Some had their heads covered, some did not. Of those who did not, Nathan spotted some who appeared to be missing the ubiquitous forehead plating he was accustomed to seeing. He took in the slightly more delicate features and the narrower slant to their jaws and concluded that these were krogan _females._ One thing he did know about krogan culture was that their females were reclusive, rarely venturing off Tuchanka. With a start, he realised that they were being shown one of the most secret and valuable places for the krogan people.

He heard Shepard gasp as Wrex moved further into the cavern, leading them up to the edge of a pool of water set into the middle of the boulevard. Garrus let out a murmur of appreciation and even Zaeed was quiet. The pool was lined by garden beds filled with palm-like plants and mossy ground coverings. Nathan could hear a faint trickle of water coming from nearby, and assumed the pool was fed by an underground stream. “ _Wrex,”_ Shepard murmured, voice filled with reverence. “This is… amazing. I never expected you would be able to…” she trailed off, gazing around the cavern.

Wrex was smiling proudly, but he shook his head. “I can’t take full credit for this. This place wasn’t just my idea. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

He led them away again, into one of the buildings lining the boulevard and through a number of hallways and smaller rooms. Eventually they reached an area that seemed different. The walls and floor were scrubbed clean and there was a hint of an antiseptic smell in the air. Wrex took them through another door secured by a DNA scanner and into a well-equipped medical facility.

A dozen beds lined the walls, about half occupied with female krogan. Some were sleeping, others were hooked up to medical equipment. One was sitting on the side of her bed as though she had just been getting up to leave. She wore a fully hooded robe, leaving only her eyes visible behind swathes of deep blue and green cloth. Standing beside her was another krogan female, wearing armour similar in design to Wrex’s own but coloured dark green.

Wrex strode forward to stand with the two females. “This is Gadorn Akora, leader of Clan Gadorn, and this is the shaman of Clan Gadorn. As Urdnot is now the forefront male clan, Gadorn is the prominent female clan,” he introduced them.

Shepard stepped forward, extending her hand. “Commander Shepard of the Systems Alliance. It’s an honour.”

Gadorn Akora took her hand, but her movements were wary. “Commander Shepard. I have heard of you,” she replied, her voice deep and powerful. Although her words were cautious, Nathan detected an undercurrent of respect. “You are a great warrior.” Shepard inclined her head.

The Gadorn shaman – Nathan wondered why she had not been introduced by name – extended her own hand in a far more assured gesture than her clanswoman. “Commander. The honour is mine.” Her voice was deeper still, but also vaguely melodic, laced with levels of wisdom he had never before heard from another living being. He found himself holding his breath, the better to hear her speak.

“Your home is beautiful, Shaman. But it is not something I expected to see on Tuchanka,” Shepard admitted, shaking the offered hand. Nathan wondered if hand-shaking meant the same in krogan culture as it did in human, or if the krogan were just doing it for Shepard’s benefit.

“Clan Gadorn has been building in the Pharos Valley for many years,” the shaman explained. “It was intended originally to be a stronghold when the female clans came together to protect our fertile sisters and their children. It has since evolved.”

“Wrex told me about the plan to create a neutral ground to protect the fertile females and facilitate cooperation between clans. This is it?” Shepard asked.

“Yes, but it will soon be more,” Akora replied. “Wrex and I have been negotiating on how best to unite the krogan people. We agree the Pharos Valley is the best location for our new shared home.”

“Forgive me, but won’t the other clans object to Clan Urdnot getting a monopoly on all the fertile females?” Garrus asked.

Akora bristled, and suddenly she was inches away from Garrus’ face. She moved quickly for a krogan. The turian looked surprised, but stood his ground. “The females of Clan Gadorn are tired of being treated like commodities. No clan will have a _monopoly_ on any female. Females – _and_ males – will be free to choose their mate however they see fit.”

The Gadorn shaman interjected, a calming influence on her angry clan leader. “We have not been free to behave this way in the past. But now that we are close to a cure for the genophage, we have new options.”

Shepard’s head jerked from the shaman to Wrex and Akora. “You’re _what?”_

“Shepard!”

Nathan spun to a door over on the other side of the room, which had just slid open to reveal a salarian dressed in distinctive red and white armour. His wide mouth was stretched upward at the corners, big black eyes twinkling as he grinned.

Shepard matched his grin with one of her own. “Mordin!” she exclaimed, hurrying over to the salarian and grasping him by the shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

“Needed something meaningful after the Collectors were destroyed. Was having trouble reconciling Maelon’s treatment of the krogan females while researching his own cure. Was wrong. Too cruel. Maelon was my protégé; felt responsible. Couldn’t leave it at that. Had to finish the job myself. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.”

Nathan blinked. Mordin was a hell of a fast talker. He hadn’t understood half of what he had just said. Despite that, he felt himself starting to smile along with Shepard as she listened to the amiable salarian.

Shepard was obviously accustomed to it. “You just decided one day to come to Tuchanka?”

Mordin shook his head. “No. Discussed problem with Wrex first. Took weeks. Terrible message etiquette, bad spelling.” Wrex grumbled to himself. “But then, was introduced to Gadorn shaman. Much better spelling. She invited me here.”

“I’m surprised you were willing to trust a salarian,” Garrus murmured to the shaman.

“I wasn’t,” she replied. “But I was willing to trust Wrex, and Urdnot Grunt.”

“Is Grunt here too?” Shepard asked hopefully.

Wrex shook his head. “No. He is now in command of Aralakh company. I sent him out to investigate some strange signals we’ve been picking up coming from the rachni relay.”

“The rachni? When I freed the queen back on Noveria, she promised to stay quiet and hidden. Dammit!” Shepard swore.

“We don’t know it’s the rachni yet, Shepard.”

“Would it be better if it was the Reapers?” she countered, and sighed. “I can head out there and take a look after we’re done here.”

Wrex huffed. “I wasn’t asking for your help, Shepard. I told you, we don’t need you to fight our battles anymore. Grunt has it under control.”

Shepard raised her eyebrows. “Oh. Sorry, Wrex. Force of habit.” She returned her attention to Mordin. “So you’re about to cure the genophage?”

Mordin’s leathery face stretched into a grin. “Yes. Have been working on it for months. Will be able to produce cure within weeks.”

“And this will mean that all krogan females can reclaim their rightful place in society,” Akora finished. “Our lives will no longer revolve around protecting those of us able to bear healthy children because we will _all_ be able to do so, should we wish to. We will be able to choose our own paths.”

“There are many scientists, artists and engineers among Clan Gadorn,” Wrex added. “The krogan people will be better off when we can all live peacefully together once more.”

Shepard nodded slowly. “I see why you are willing to offer me troops to help reclaim Palaven. You have a hell of a future to protect.”

“Wrex does not speak for Clan Gadorn,” Akora interjected, and her tone was wary again. “Before I agree to commit the companies of Gadorn to your cause, I need to hear your plans.”

Shepard nodded in agreement. “Of course. Is there somewhere we can talk without disturbing the patients here?”

Akora nodded. “Follow me.”


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This one’s rated M for a reason.

**Chapter Twenty**

Shepard was feeling positively buoyant when she boarded the shuttle after the mission to Tuchanka. Things had turned out far better than she could ever have hoped for.

She had not one krogan army, but _two_.

After they had sat down together and talked over the details of Shepard’s plan for Palaven, Gadorn Akora had agreed to provide female krogan warriors to stand alongside their male counterparts. She had been hesitant at first; like Wrex, Akora had been worried about leaving Tuchanka undefended when they were so close to a cure for the genophage. But unlike Wrex, she didn’t have an innate faith in Shepard to automatically tip the scales in her favour, so she had taken a lot of convincing. She did have a keen tactical eye, however – perhaps even more so than Wrex – which enabled her to see the advantages to striking the Reapers now, while they were relatively weak and divided.

She and Wrex had also been concerned about depleting a female population that would be required for repopulation after the cure was synthesised. Shepard had swallowed her disbelief that such huge considerations were somehow once again partly her responsibility, and had Mordin crunch the numbers. They had ensured enough female krogan were left behind in the Pharos Valley to keep the krogan race alive, should the worst come to pass.

Both Wrex and Akora clearly understood the threat the Reapers posed to the galaxy as a whole. The fact that she didn’t have to convince them of _that_ made Shepard very happy. It completely boggled her mind that the Council _still_ insisted on stubbornly not backing her.

It also boded well for the krogan people that its two senior clan leaders complemented each other so perfectly. Wrex was the consummate soldier, the strong, stoic leader on the frontlines with his soldiers, while Akora seemed to be more of a strategist, a metaphorical sniper and architect of battle who always had her soldiers’ backs. Aside from that, they also appeared to get along relatively well. She knew that was mostly Wrex’s doing. He had changed a lot since those first days chasing after Fist on the Citadel. It was his willingness to overcome centuries of warlike krogan tradition and stubbornness to bring the krogan together as a species that made such a partnership possible.

The two leaders had agreed to provide a significant number of krogan warriors, leaving a skeleton crew behind to defend Mordin, his cure, and the females who would not be fighting. Despite Shepard’s desire to attack as soon as possible, she had to accede to the need to gather civilians at the Pharos Valley before the warriors left, as well as to the logistics of transporting the sheer numbers of krogan that would travel to Palaven. It couldn’t all be arranged at the snap of her fingers. At best, she had been advised it would take three days to prepare the Valley and gather the required troop transports from the turian and human fleets, and a further three days, accounting for the logistics of the move, for the krogan to actually get to Palaven. The time involved was frustrating, but there wasn’t a lot she could do about it other than get onto Hackett to speed up those troop transports. She made a mental note to do that as soon as she returned to the _Normandy_.

She could hardly believe Mordin was close to a cure for the genophage. After all this time, after having come across two almost-cures, it was finally going to happen. She could see why Wrex was so optimistic now, compared to his understandably troubled and resentful demeanour during the fight against Saren. It was the culmination of all his hard work, all his hopes and dreams for his people. It had to be devastating knowing it could all be lost if the Reapers were allowed to succeed with their genocidal plans.

It was yet another reason why she would do everything within her power to prevent that from happening.

She claimed a seat in the shuttle on the other side of a bulkhead from Zaeed and pulled her dress cap off gratefully, running a hand over her hair. The heat of Tuchanka had left her sweaty and uncomfortable in her jacket and cap, and _thirsty_. She wished she had thought to bring some water with her.

As Nathan took a seat next to her she glanced over at him, covertly admiring the solid figure he cut in his heavy armour. There was something… sexy about the way he wore his armour, in the way it both hid and enhanced the muscles beneath. Ironically he would probably be feeling a lot better in that armour, with its environmental controls keeping him cool and an on board water reservoir keeping him hydrated, than she was in her uniform.

The idea of how sexy he looked and how cool and comfortable he must be only made her feel sweatier and thirstier. She shrugged out of her jacket, stuffing it into the gap between herself and the bulkhead, and leaned back against the cool metal wall of the shuttle as they took off. She closed her eyes and pointedly did _not_ think about the man sitting next to her. Instead she indulged herself in imagined scenarios involving Reapers dying in many varied and interesting ways over Palaven while krogan decimated waves of constructs on the surface.

They were in the air over Tuchanka when she felt a nudge from an armoured elbow. She opened her eyes and cast a questioning glance at Nathan. He had managed to fish out the tube leading to his hardsuit’s water reservoir from within his collar-guard and was offering it to her.

The smile she gave him was filled with gratitude. The tube obviously wasn’t intended to be shared, so it didn’t stretch very far, which meant she would have to get very close to Nathan to use it. In her current slightly overheated state, however, she saw that as a bonus. She shifted herself up higher in her seat and took the end of the straw in her mouth, closing her eyes as cool water trickled down her throat. The ceramic of his armour was hard and cool against her bare arm; it felt wonderful.

When she opened her eyes he was right there in front of her, all soft brown eyes and warm skin. She breathed him in, nose filling with his familiar scent. She found herself drifting closer until her nose was no more than a hair’s breadth from his. He brushed his nose softly against hers and she felt warmth spread through her stomach. His lips touched hers, the barest hint of a feather-light caress.

_“Commander?”_

She jumped, jerking back into her own seat and back to reality as Joker’s voice came over her in-ear comm. She cleared her throat and raised a finger to her ear, feeling like a complete idiot. _Mid-mission, Shepard? Focus._ “What is it, Joker?” she asked. Carefully she kept her eyes off Nathan, ignoring the satisfied little grin on his face. Damn him.

_“There’s something wrong with the_ Normandy _,”_ Joker told her, sans his usual wise-cracking.

That got her full attention. She stood up as the warmth in her stomach quickly receded, replaced by a sliver of ice. “Be a bit more specific, Joker,” she told him impatiently.

_“We’re getting power fluctuations, Commander. Adams can’t pinpoint the cause. And… I can’t raise EDI.”_

She swore to herself. _That_ wasn’t good. If something had happened to EDI, or even worse, compromised her… “Lock the _Normandy’s_ systems down, Joker. Can you cut EDI’s access?”

_“No, ma’am, already tried that. But she wouldn’t… this has to be something else.”_

“I know she wouldn’t, but she can still be hacked.” Shepard softened her tone as she recognised the worry in his voice. “Get your breather on just in case and issue an alert. Tell the rest of the crew to do the same. Get someone down to the cargo bay ready to manually crank the door open to let us in if necessary,” she ordered, mentally running through possible scenarios, roadblocks a potentially compromised AI might throw up in their path.

_“Aye aye, ma’am,”_ Joker replied. The comm clicked as he signed off.

“Shepard?” Zaeed spoke up in his gruff voice. “What’s going on?”

She grabbed hold of one of the straps overhead as the shuttle jolted. “I don’t know yet. The _Normandy’s_ systems have gone haywire and EDI isn’t responding.”

“The VI?” Nathan questioned. “You think it’s been hacked?”

She looked at him in confusion. “VI? Haven’t you been introduced to EDI yet?” She shook her head. How had she missed that? Later. “Never mind. EDI is a fully self-aware AI.”

“A what? An AI? How did—What about—Wait. You know what, never mind. Nothing can possibly surprise me about you or the _Normandy_ anymore, Commander,” Nathan finished, shaking his head and visibly pushing his questions aside. “Do you think the _AI_ has been hacked?”

“I hope not,” Shepard replied, ignoring his internal struggle as she paced the length of the shuttle. “In fact, it’s highly unlikely. She’s far too sophisticated for that.”

“Could she have gone rogue?” Zaeed asked. “She’s always making those goddamn jokes about humans on their knees.”

Shepard shook her head. “Also highly unlikely. EDI wouldn’t do that. She has become self-aware enough to be part of the crew,” she explained for Nathan’s benefit. “No. I don’t know what’s going on.” She opened the cockpit door and leaned in. “Cortez, did you catch all that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the shuttle pilot replied. “Already double-timing it.”

The remainder of the shuttle ride was tense as she hung over Cortez’s shoulder, watching the gleaming white hull of the _Normandy_ approach, all thoughts of Nathan and that agonisingly near-kiss forgotten for the moment. The cargo bay door swung open at Cortez’s remote command and they docked without incident.

The cargo bay was bathed in the dull red of the emergency alert lights and had been evacuated, bar a single crewwoman in a full set of vacuum-sealed armour, probably the one Joker had sent down to manually open the bay doors if necessary. She stood near the terminals as Shepard and the ground team came on board, fingering her obviously unfamiliar pistol nervously. When she spotted Shepard she seemed to visibly relax, moving back out of the way.

As soon as she set foot on the deck of the _Normandy_ Shepard raised her eyes to the ceiling and called for EDI. Instead of EDI, however, she got Miranda. “Commander, you need to get to the AI core immediately.”

“On my way.” Miranda didn’t sound hurt or angry or under duress, but Shepard grabbed a pistol from the locker on her way past anyway, nodding at the barely-regulation salute of the frightened crewwoman. She had been feeling naked without a weapon the whole time she was on Tuchanka. It was good to have the solid grip of a gun back in her hand.

She was glad she had it when she stepped through the doors of the AI core and came face to face with Dr Eva Core.

In a flash the pistol was up and trained on Core’s forehead. Before she could fire, however, Core raised her hands and quickly said, “Shepard.”

In EDI’s voice.

Shepard paused. _What the hell?_ “EDI?”

Miranda and Joker, who had been standing off to one side when she entered, stepped forward to stand alongside the mech. “Yep,” Joker drawled. “It’s EDI.”

“Explain,” she ordered, keeping her weapon raised but aiming slightly to one side of the mech’s head.

EDI herself spoke up, her voice again coming from Dr Eva’s body. “I was scanning this platform’s systems for intelligence as you requested, when I tripped a hidden failsafe and it began to fight back. Hence the fire.” Shepard noticed the black scorch marks on the surrounding equipment for the first time. She narrowed her eyes, feeling anger bloom in her chest. “I was able to bring it under control using the Normandy’s automated systems, but it required my full processing power. I was unable to prevent some minor power fluctuations, nor warn the crew. I am sorry for startling you, Shepard.”

Gritting her teeth, Shepard lowered her weapon and tucked it into the waistband of her pants. It had required EDI’s _full_ processing power? EDI’s processing power was _huge._ “You’re sorry for _startling_ me? EDI, surely you had some idea this might happen.”

“It was a relatively low probability, but… yes. It is why I chose to perform certain scans at a time when the _Normandy_ was in a relatively safe environment.”

“Why you chose… EDI, what the hell were you thinking?” Shepard demanded. “If you’re putting _my_ ship and _my_ crew in danger, _I_ need to know about it. I don’t care how low the probability is, or what you’ve done to mitigate the risk!” She allowed the volume of her voice to raise until she was almost yelling. “This is my ship and I’m responsible for it and everyone on board. Do you understand?”

Somehow EDI managed to make her new mechanical body appear chastened. “I understand, Commander. It will not happen again.”

“Good.” Shepard paced a couple of steps, catching sight of Nathan and Zaeed behind her as she tried to calm the anger threatening to boil over from within. What the _hell_ had EDI thought she was doing? Nathan had his own pistol in hand but lowered, and Zaeed was still pointing his assault rifle at EDI. Shepard briskly waved them down then turned back, arms crossed over her chest. “Now, tell me how you went from fighting this body to inhabiting it.”

EDI explained how she had decided to take over the body after her defeat of its previous AI inhabitant had revealed a method to do so. She had considered the advantages to possessing a mobile platform able to accompany the assault team on ground missions to be greater than the potential for any lingering booby-traps. She had calculated the probability of any of _those_ existingto be infinitesimally small and easily within her capabilities to disable.

Shepard had to grudgingly admit that even though she was angry, she was intrigued about the new tactical possibilities having EDI on her ground team would give her. “All right,” she forced out through gritted teeth. “Before I take you with me anywhere, EDI, I need a full report on the capabilities and limitations of this… platform. Perform whatever tests you deem necessary and get that to me by this time tomorrow.”

EDI lowered her head in acknowledgement. “Yes, Commander.”

Shepard wasn’t done. “In addition to that you will spend the next twenty-four hours studying all of the vids and data from my previous ground missions, along with as much footage of ground combat in general as you can get. You’ve been watching us from the start but you’ve never actually set foot into a combat zone. You’ve never been shot at before. It’s very different to watching vids, let me tell you. This time tomorrow you will report to me and I will assess your competency and fitness for combat.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Good. One last thing. For almost setting my ship on fire, EDI, you are confined to quarters. For the next twenty-four hours you will limit your functions to that of a shipboard VI. Your platform will remain in the AI core and you will have no contact with any of the crew other than to fulfil those duties. Is that understood?”

She thought EDI might have looked a little disappointed at that. Good, she had judged her punishment correctly, then _._ “Yes, Commander, I understand.”

Shepard nodded sharply, giving Joker a significant look. “Dismissed,” she said. “Miranda, secure the ship from alert.”

Joker cast EDI a pained look filled with curiosity but did as ordered. Miranda cast her a quick salute then headed for the mess area, followed by Zaeed and Nathan. She herself made directly for the elevator. Her anger was barely simmering now, her desire for a shower to get rid of all the sweat and dust from Tuchanka winning out over anything else.

The shower would have to wait a little longer, though. She had a lot to think about now that she had a potential new team member in EDI. There was also the matter of the messages she had sent to her old crew back before Menae. With all her preparations for the battle on Palaven and the summit on Tuchanka she hadn’t dared take a few minutes to find out if she had received any replies. She had time now – days of it – and it was about time she got onto that. She had wanted to try and recruit Samara, Jack and Tali if she could. Tali’s engineering and technical expertise in particular would be most welcome, but she also wanted Jack’s sheer biotic power and Samara’s centuries of knowledge and wisdom to round out her team.

She boarded the elevator and slapped the button for the loft, running a hand over her dusty forehead. Perhaps she would have that shower first, after all.

Before the doors could close, an armoured hand inserted itself between the sensors and Nathan ducked inside. She was mildly surprised; she thought he had gone to the mess. He was still in full armour, face slightly flushed and hair sticking up all over the place. He looked just as sweaty and hot as she was, but he was still _gorgeous._

He leaned up against the wall on one side of the elevator, eyeing her keenly. “So, that was EDI. An AI,” he commented.

She nodded, trying valiantly to push away her mild irritation. Normally she loved talking with Nathan but right now her temper was frayed. All she wanted was to shower and relax. “Yes,” she replied. “Well, the body is new. She just had a little blue head before.”

He frowned and cocked his head to one side. “A… little blue head?” he repeated.

Shepard sighed in frustration. “A little…” she did her best to make the shape of a ball sitting on a narrow stand with her hands, “avatar. It looked like a head.”

The lop-sided smile he gave her set her heart racing despite her irritation. _Why does he have to be so bloody_ handsome? He sidled over to her and leaned his shoulder against the wall beside her. He was close enough that she had to look up to meet his eyes… beautiful liquid caramel eyes...

_Oh for fuck’s sake, Shepard._

“You sounded pretty angry back there,” he noted.

Oh right, she was angry. She had forgotten for a moment. “I was.”

He reached a hand out, trailing a gloved finger along her hairline and around behind her ear. “Are you still angry?”

She blinked slowly as his finger meandered behind her ear, the material of his gloves brushing against the sensitive skin there. Her irritation had morphed into something a little more interesting, it seemed. “No,” she replied.

“That’s good,” he murmured, sidling closer, finger now heading down her neck. “You’re _hot_ when you’re giving orders.”

Shepard couldn’t help a small amused smile. “I do that a lot.”

That lop-sided smile was back, only this time the heat in his eyes sent a coiling warmth through her belly. “I know, but there’s a certain tone of voice you use sometimes… it gets to me, Shepard.”

As his finger trailed its way down her sleeve, over the N7 stripe, she rested her hands on the armour covering his stomach. “Oh really?”

“Mmhm. You use that voice, and I want you. Right there.”

She gave him a lazy smile. Slowly she ran her hands over his armour, caressing her way up to his collar-guard as if she was touching his skin. Taking hold of it she pulled his head down so she could whisper directly into his ear. “Kiss me, Lieutenant,” she ordered him.

In one smooth move he had her pressed firmly up against the back wall of the elevator. His mouth descended on hers, hard and hot, tongue warm and wet in her mouth. Her heart thudded in her chest as she closed her eyes and lost herself in the sensations of his lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth, his stubble brushing against her cheeks. She forgot all about the work she had wanted to get done.

He eased a knee in between her legs, and muscles tightened low in her belly. She let out an involuntary noise as shivers of anticipation crawled up her spine. He worked his hand in behind her back, encircling her waist with his arm. The pressure of his thigh and the solid feel of his armour against and around her body was achingly good.

The elevator pinged and the doors slid open outside her quarters. She didn’t stop to wonder why it had taken them so long to get there; she assumed EDI had a hand in it. She stumbled with him out into the tiny anteroom and started feeling for the catches to his armour with expert, impatient fingers. “EDI, lock down access to this floor,” she called a little breathlessly.

She didn’t hear the response as she pulled the heavy ceramic pieces off one by one. As nice as it was to feel his armoured body against hers, she wanted to feel his skin too. It took a few minutes punctuated by the occasional laugh or stumble but finally he was shrugging out of his skinsuit, leaving him in shorts and undershirt. Shepard reached for him, entwining her arms around his neck and pressing her body against his, enjoying the feel of his skin against hers without the barrier created by his armour. He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her tightly and gazing at her with his liquid brown eyes. What she saw there made her heartbeat quicken with more than just lust.

But it also gave her a moment’s pause. Through the desire pulsing in her body she remembered why she had stopped this back on Earth, and she pulled back a little. She had made herself comfortable with her own reservations but she needed to know he was too. “Briggs… I need you to know that you have no obligation… I mean, just because I’m your CO… You can leave whenever you—“

“Shepard,” he interrupted her, amused. “I started this, remember?”

_Oh, right. That was a good point._ She stood up taller within the circle of his arms and kissed him again, slowly, passionately. His arms were firm against her back, his chest warm and hard.

It didn’t take long before the kiss deepened again, becoming harder and hotter. He ran his hands down her back, over her backside to grip her thighs, spreading her legs as he lifted her. She hooked her legs behind his back, clenching her thigh muscles tightly around his waist. His hands were doing captivating things to her sensitive inner thighs even through the material of her uniform trousers.

He stopped kissing her for a moment, glancing around the anteroom for inspiration. She took advantage of his distraction and leant down to capture an earlobe in her mouth, sucking and licking at the soft skin. “Fuck, Shepard,” he groaned, moving over to the edge of the anteroom. She wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing until he set her down on the guard-rail.

She chuckled lightly at his reaction, ignoring the hard, cold metal of the rail beneath her trouser-covered legs. She whispered, “That’s the idea,” directly into his ear, then kissed her way down the side of his neck to the edge of his shirt. She grasped for the shirt, pulling it up and over his head. His hands had found their way beneath the hem of her own shirt, but before he could try and remove it from her she continued along the path her kissing had been taking across his collarbone and down his chest.

He made a frustrated noise but ran light fingers up her spine, sending shivers through her body, and deftly unclasped her bra. When she deliberately didn’t stop what she was doing to allow him to remove it he pulled back just enough to duck down and capture her mouth. She spotted a twinkle in his eye as he kissed her, pulling her shirt and bra up and over the tops of her breasts and finding her bare nipples with sweeps of his thumbs. She gasped against his mouth and suddenly found her own mouth full with his tongue. His fingers tweaked her nipples and caressed the soft flesh of her breasts, leaving a thoroughly pleasant ache between her legs and distracting her enough so that when he suddenly broke off the kiss he was able to pull her shirt and bra off in one swift, easy motion. “No fair,” she complained breathlessly.

To her horror, his hands abruptly stilled. The familiar teasing look in his eyes took on a whole new meaning in this context. “Should I stop?” he asked.

She groaned. _Goddamn tease._ “God no.”

He smirked and pulled her forward off the rail, turning her around and palming her breasts, stroking and caressing while he kissed her neck. Her ass was pressed back into his groin, and she could feel his hardness as she moved against him. She caught her breath as one of his hands meandered down her belly and found the clasp to her pants, flicking it open. His fingers dipped down into her underwear, brushing against her clit for the briefest of seconds before delving into the wetness below. She moaned, feeling her legs turn to jelly beneath her.

“You know, my quarters are right there,” she breathed, head swimming with the sensations he was creating with his fingers. Those fingers. Damn, he was as good with them as she had hoped.

“Mmhm,” he murmured into her ear. “Take off your pants.”

She thought that was a great idea, so she did, quickly pushing them down and stepping out of them while trying not to move away from his fingers. When she straightened up again the feel of the cloth of his pants instead of his skin against her bare flesh was incredibly frustrating. She reached her hands behind her back, trying to get her addled brain to figure out how to undo the button on his pants backwards.

The deep chuckle in her ear at her efforts was both hot and a little evil. He plunged a finger inside her, his thumb found her clit and she immediately forgot what she had been doing. She clutched his waistband as his thumb moved in delicious swirls and the hand on her breast gave her nipple a light pinch. She couldn’t take much more of this. “I swear to god, Nathan…” she gasped out.

“Something you want, Shepard?” he drawled.

She tilted her head back against his shoulder to meet his eyes and found that voice she normally kept only for giving out instructions to her squad. She knew exactly what it would do to him. When she spoke, though, it was with a much lower and huskier version. “Fuck me, Lieutenant,” she ordered.

His eyes were dark with desire as he pressed his lips hard to hers and began walking back towards the door to her quarters, pulling her with him. She spun around and slipped the button on his shorts undone, pushing them down his hips without waiting for him to stop moving. He kicked them off impatiently. She slapped the door release then _finally_ gripped him in her hands. He was hard, thick and ready. He almost stumbled at her touch. She had barely stroked him before he was lifting her again and setting her down on her desk after shoving a stack of datapads out of the way.

She met his forward motion with her own, taking hold of him again and after a couple of quick strokes of the silky smooth skin guiding him to her entrance. He held her tightly, finding her eyes and locking on to them as he pushed into her. Inch by inch she found it harder to keep her eyes open, finally letting them close as he buried himself inside her. She moaned, absorbed by the sensation of being filled, only to let out another groan as he withdrew, then slowly pushed back in.

He gradually built up a rhythm, meeting the pace she demanded with her thighs and calves as her body adjusted to accommodate his size. She wrapped an arm around his neck, using the other to brace herself against the desk as he slid in and out of her. Pulling his head down to hers, she kissed him, drowning in the ripples of pleasure setting every nerve ending in her body on fire.

She felt her belly begin to tense as he brought her, stroke by stroke, to the edge. With a sudden sure flick of her clit with the pad of his thumb she fell tumbling over.

She tensed, burying her head in his shoulder and crying out as all her muscles clenched at once and a flood of warm elation spread from her core all the way out to her fingers and toes. He grunted as her inner muscles tightened around him, bringing on his own release. She clamped her thighs tight around his waist, leaning her head against him through the aftershocks.

Gradually the sensations faded. She sighed contentedly and raised her face to his, finding him as sweaty and wrung-out as she felt, and now smeared with Tuchankan dust as well. He gave her a sloppy grin. She kissed him, long and slow.

When they finally broke apart, he was staring at her with wonder, and a little awe. She smiled up at him, basking in the afterglow, sure the same sentiments were written on her own face. “Damn, Briggs,” she murmured. “You’re good at that.”

He kissed her tenderly, then whispered against her mouth by way of explanation, “You’re beautiful, Shepard.”

He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her again, taking her the few steps down to her bed below without breaking the kiss, and rolling onto the bed with her in his arms. She shifted off him and stretched out as he propped himself up on one elbow, reaching a hand out to trail his fingers over her exhausted body. Little tendrils of pleasure followed his fingers wherever they went.

She smiled up at him, pulling him down for another kiss. She felt her worries from earlier recede. She didn’t feel like she was taking advantage of him at all. Like he had said, he initiated this. He had wanted it as much as she had, and he was certainly not some blushing inexperienced virgin. It was… mutual.

Of course, there was still a lot for them to talk about, but now wasn’t the time. She turned and pulled his arms around herself, burrowing into his warmth like a blanket. Secure and content, she allowed the beating of his heart to lull her to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Damn, and I thought the party chapter went through a lot of rewrites. I was aiming for a sex scene here, rather than smut, if that makes sense. I hope it worked. I hope you enjoyed it! As always, constructive criticism is very welcome, and thank you to those who are following and have favourited.


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

**Chapter Twenty-One**

After he woke up the following morning Nathan spent a good half hour believing he was in fact still asleep. There was no way his arms would be wrapped around a naked, perfect Commander Shepard if he was awake. But it wasn’t often he had such vivid dreams so he lay there quietly, nose buried in her thick hair, chest pressed against her back, worried that if he moved he would wake up sooner. He breathed in her scent and tightened his arms on bare, soft skin.

She murmured and shifted in her sleep and he held his breath, sure the dream was about to end, but when he blinked she was still there. He let out his breath, and that was what convinced him that he was actually awake – in dreams he was always too preoccupied with what was happening to notice his own breathing.

He gazed down at her in wonder, the previous night replaying in glorious clarity in his mind. The sex had been _fantastic._ The feel of the strength in her deceptively soft thighs as they wrapped around his body, the sight of her round breasts and hard nipples and the look on her face as she moaned and writhed in response to his touch… That look was intoxicating, he wanted to see it again and again. She was beautiful, the most beautiful woman he had ever--

Shepard rolled slightly and let out a loud snore.

Nathan choked back a laugh, feeling a smile spread across his face. Of _course_ she snored. She snorted when she laughed, had the worst one-liners he had ever heard, tripped over her own feet when she wasn’t in combat… she was _Shepard_. He loved it. All of it. His body shook as he lost the battle to suppress his silent laughter.

Shepard stirred, then mumbled and turned over, bleary-eyed and blinking. “Wha… Nathan? What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, grinning. “Never mind. Sorry.”

She frowned and tried to sit up, tiredly rubbing her nose. “Are you laughing at me?”

He pulled her back down into the circle of his arms. He wasn’t quite ready to let her go just yet. “No,” he told her. “Well, maybe. You snore, that’s all.”

She gave him a disbelieving look over her shoulder. “I do not snore.”

“You do,” he murmured into her neck, gently nuzzling with lips and nose.

“Not true,” she argued softly, relaxing back against him. “I’ve never heard myself snore.”

Terrible, terrible one-liners.

He chuckled, kissing his way slowly down her neck. He ran his hand down the length of her side, over the curves of breast and hip, luxuriating in the silky feel of her skin and the barely visible coiled muscles beneath. She sighed in pleasure, but then groaned in a way that had nothing to do with him. “What’s the time?” she asked, rolling over in his arms and craning her head to see the chrono on the bedside table.

“Early,” he told her, shifting onto his back and pulling her on top of him. For such a strong woman, she was so light. He had been able to lift her off her feet easily last night. More Cerberus mods? “Very early. So early that we should probably go back to sleep. Or, you know, we could do something else.”

She rested her chin on her hands atop his chest. Her sleepy eyes sparkled with amusement and her long hair fell forward over her shoulders, tickling his skin. “Something else, huh?”

“Mmhm. I can think of plenty of things we could do.”

He could feel those marvellous thighs again, gripping his hips as she straddled him. His body started to respond immediately. He pulled her down for a kiss, then shifted his lips to her ear and told her exactly what he wanted to do to her.

When she lifted her head, her blue eyes were dark. “You’re going to need to show me some of those things you just said, Lieutenant,” she said.

He grinned. He loved it when she used his rank, and he had a feeling she was fully aware of that. He rolled her over again, reversing their positions so she was pinned under his weight, looking up at him with those beautiful ocean-blue eyes. Leaning down, he began with the first thing.

 

* * *

 

Shepard groaned happily, stretching. The second thing he had shown her had taken quite a bit of stamina. She was exhausted… but in a good way. Nathan had propped himself up beside her. He leaned over and shifted some damp hair out of her eyes. “Again?” he teased.

She laughed and groaned again, shaking her head. “I don’t think I can move anymore.”

He kissed her, seeming awfully proud of that. “You’ll have to lie here all day then,” he murmured smugly into her ear, planting another kiss on her cheekbone.

She twined her fingers around his neck, playing with the damp hair at the base of his scalp. If only she could. “We can’t stay in orbit over Tuchanka forever.”

“We don’t have to leave right away though, do we?”

She shook her head. “No. It will take days for the krogan to be ready to head to Palaven. But there are still things I need to do.” She had a lot to do, actually. She had to check her terminal for messages, speak to Hackett, receive EDI’s report, check in with the rest of the crew… everything she had planned to do before he had jumped into the elevator with her yesterday. She had no idea how long they had been in bed for this morning, but it had been very early when they had woken up. Hopefully it wasn’t _too_ late in the morning now.

She glanced over at the chrono and winced. They had missed breakfast.

She sat up and made to head to the shower, but Nathan grabbed her hand before she could get up. “How do you want to handle… this?” he asked awkwardly, indicating the two of them.

Oh. They did need to have _that_ talk. Shepard sighed in frustration. If they weren’t aboard an Alliance military ship, if there weren’t reporters like al’Jilani following her every move, things would be so much easier. She didn’t really know how she wanted to handle those things. She only knew that she liked Nathan a lot and wanted to be with him. The stubborn side of her didn’t want to break things off for the sake of how it would appear to others, but the practical, dutiful side…

Nathan sat up and turned away. She had been silent for too long. “Look, it’s okay. I understand. How about we just treat this as a hell of a fun night and leave it at that?” he said. His voice was flippant, as usual, but he did a terrible job at trying to hide the hurt behind his words.

Her eyes widened and it was her turn to reach out for him. The last thing she wanted was for him to think even for a second that he was just some kind of stress relief. She scooted closer and gently pulled him back around to face her. “I don’t want to do that,” she told him firmly.

“You don’t?”

She shook her head. “No. I… want to see you again. I want to find out where this thing between us goes.”

His relieved smile prompted one of her own. He gently pressed his forehead to hers. “Good. So do I.” Then he sighed and pulled away. “We could both get in a lot of shit for this, though. You in particular. Your face is all over the news, the press’ll have a field day. And then there’s the regs…”

Shepard felt a pang of nerves. He was right, it would be very difficult for the two of them to see one another. She might be willing to put herself through that, but it came with the territory for her. She didn’t really have the right to ask him to do it too. “I can handle Hackett, but it’ll turn into a problem if the media finds out. We will have to keep it quiet, even around the crew. Not so much the ground team, but the rest of the crew… It won’t be easy. I understand if you’re not interested in that sort of—“

“Shepard,” Nathan interrupted. “I was more worried about you than me. I don’t care about regs or having to hide if it means I get to be with you.”

God, that was corny. So corny. But her treacherous heart skipped a beat anyway. He was willing to subject himself to what could be some very unwelcome scrutiny and possible repercussions just to be with her. She kissed him, wondering how his lips could be so new and exciting but feel so familiar at the same time.

With an effort she cut it short before it could get heated. “You had better go first, then. Take a shower if you want.”

He shook his head, getting up. “If I show up all squeaky clean and no one remembers me using the crew shower it’ll all be over before it’s even begun. I can just say I was up early working out… which I kind of was.” He gave her a sly grin, then with a quick final kiss he ducked out. He passed her discarded dress uniform in to her from the anteroom as he went. Shepard smiled to herself as she tucked it into the launderer and stepped into the shower.

Alone with her thoughts, she chuckled ruefully at how tired her legs were, as well as certain other decidedly under-used muscles. The two of them had behaved like a pair of horny teenagers last night, jumping on each other, then having sex twice more this morning. She vividly remembered having multiple orgasms at one point. It had been amazing. And yet, the sex hadn’t been the best bit.

It was those brief moments between, or sometimes during, that she had really loved. Moments where they had become thoroughly caught up in each other’s eyes, fleetingly conscious of the deeper feelings passing between them. There was an inexplicable feeling of familiarity to his eyes, too, just like there was to his lips. It wasn’t that she recognised him from somewhere, or knew of someone who looked like him. Rather, it felt like she was recognising a kindred spirit. A partner. Someone she could share things with and know that he would understand. Someone she could trust to always have her back.

Which seemed completely counterintuitive considering how they had met and how much he had disliked her at the time, but it was there all the same.

She sighed regretfully to herself. As much as she had enjoyed last night and the morning, though, she really did have a lot of work to do and she had to focus on that.

She finished up her shower quickly and dressed in her white BDU shirt and standard fatigues, sans overalls, then headed down to the crew deck to grab a ration bar for a late breakfast. While she was there she ducked her head into Miranda’s quarters, but she had already left for her shift.

She had to stifle a laugh as she headed to the elevator, nodding toward various crewmembers as they offered her salutes. She had _never_ thought she would be able to convince Miranda Lawson to take a field commission and don an Alliance uniform, but somehow she had. She was grateful, too; the ex-Cerberus operative had been the best XO she had ever had. Granted she had only had two of those and Pressly, may he rest in peace, came in a very close second, but the point could still be made. Shepard was glad to have her back.

When she arrived in the CIC, she spotted Miranda leaning over the galaxy map. Dressed in uniform with her dark hair tied up in a regulation bun, she blended right in with the rest of the crew. Shepard thought it might take a while longer for her to _fully_ blend in with the crew, socially and professionally, but for now it was enough for her to look the part well enough to be able to perform her job to the best of her ability. “Morning, XO,” she greeted her cheerfully.

“Morning Shepard—oh, I suppose I mean _Commander_ ,” Miranda replied, delivering a picture perfect salute.

Shepard beamed in approval. “Wow. You’ve been working on that,” she commented. The woman had only ever saluted her once during the whole time they had spent hunting the Collectors, but when Miranda had accepted the field commission Shepard had made it clear she would have to follow correct military protocol, which included saluting. So far she had done it scrupulously well.

Miranda gave her an expectant look, holding her salute, waiting for Shepard to return it as per said protocol. Shepard thought about making her wait just because she was in a teasing mood, but decided against it. Miranda wasn’t often one for teasing. She nodded instead. “At ease. Anything to report?”

Miranda glanced at Specialist Traynor, who was working at her terminal next to the map. “Actually, yes. You recall that I’ve been looking into Cerberus activities?” Shepard nodded, chewing on her ration bar. “Well, I found something interesting. I passed it to Specialist Traynor and we agreed it might be worth looking into.”

Well, that explained the lack of notice Miranda had paid to her exceptionally good mood. She had been expecting sideways looks at least. “What did you find?” Shepard asked.

Miranda zoomed in on a system on the galaxy map, highlighting a seemingly empty area of space. “The Alliance maintains a number of small recruiting stations throughout Alliance space. They’re used primarily to funnel new recruits from nearby planets to the best location for training, and to weed out those who are considered unsuitable. They are used for the recruitment of every role in the armed forces from cooks and engineers to special forces soldiers.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Shepard replied.

Miranda nodded. “I recently found out from a source of mine that Cerberus was showing altogether too much interest in one of these stations. This one here, in the Sinerand system.” She indicated the blank area of space on the galaxy map. Looking closer, Shepard could just about make out the tiny form of a space station.

“Your source is within Cerberus?”

“Yes, Commander, and before you ask, I _do_ trust them.” Shepard raised an eyebrow, remembering the last time Miranda had trusted a source beyond all doubt. Miranda gave her a knowing look and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “This isn’t like Niket. This time the source owes me quite a lot of credits, among other less purchasable things.”

“All right, go on. Any idea why Cerberus is interested in a recruiting station?” Shepard finished off her ration bar and tucked the wrapper into a pocket to dispose of later.

Miranda’s forehead creased with a frown. “Not… entirely. But the strange thing is that they appear to still be running it as a recruitment station.”

“That doesn’t sound entirely strange. I can believe Cerberus would recruit people and then deceive them into thinking they were working for the Alliance when in fact they were working for Cerberus.”

“That was what I initially thought they were doing. However, my source tells me that overall Cerberus recruitment numbers don’t match up.”

“Don’t match up how? Are they fudging the numbers somehow? Or keeping them off the books entirely, maybe?”

Miranda shook her head and looked at Sam, who jumped in. “Not with this number of people, no ma’am. Each monthly intake consists of approximately fifty recruits. That’s six hundred per year. It would take some very creative accounting to hide them, or to provide for their salaries or other forms of upkeep while also keeping them off the books. I would have been able to spot discrepancies like that.”

Shepard paced along the edge of the central console, thinking. Sam was right, those kinds of numbers couldn’t just be blended in with other teams or be some sort of singular black ops team. “So Cerberus is funnelling people from this station to… where? And for how long have they been doing this?” she mused.

“I looked into that too, ma’am,” Sam continued. “The odd thing is that there are nowhere near enough transports away from the station to possibly hold all of the missing recruits. And they’ve had control of the station for months.”

“The station is too small and physically lacks the storage space for supplies to feed and house them all,” Miranda added grimly.

Shepard felt a chill spread along her spine, good mood all but gone. She felt the weight of the galaxy piling itself back onto her shoulders and was almost angry about it… except she didn’t have the right to be and she knew it. Defeating the Reapers had been made her responsibility and she had to bear it.

“So what are they doing to them that they wouldn’t need to feed them?” she wondered aloud. Her mind immediately flew back to the half-husks dressed in Cerberus armour they had fought on Mars. She doubted they would need food. “Could this be where they’re getting their husked troops from?”

Miranda nodded slowly. “There’s a very high possibility, yes.”

Shepard swore to herself. “Joker, how long would it take us to get the Sinerand system?” she called to the ship’s comm.

_“It’s not far, Commander. Twelve hours maybe?”_

She nodded. That would leave them enough time to get there, find out what Cerberus was up to, blow whatever it was to hell, then rest up before the big push on Palaven. “Set a course,” she ordered. “Miranda, I want the assault team, Joker, and you, Traynor, in the war room at…” she glanced at a chrono, “1400 hours to start working on a plan of attack. You have until then to work out some options for me.” She paused. “Good work, Miranda, Traynor.”

Miranda gave her a curt nod and a “Yes, Commander,” before striding off toward the cockpit. Traynor beamed happily and returned to work.

Shepard moved to her personal terminal and brought up the screen, mind working at a million miles a minute. It would be a huge coup to be able to take out Cerberus’ husk processing facility, if that was what this was. If the Illusive Man really had the goal of controlling the Reapers rather than destroying them he would be trying to undermine her efforts to do just that at every opportunity he got. Reducing the size of his army would be crucial to her overall success. But if they were to have any chance of taking out a space station full of Cerberus troops she wanted more soldiers than what she currently had. Her team was good, but needed to be larger. It was time to get on to those messages she had sent.

Her inbox was full of all sorts of things, but she dug through it, searching for three specific messages. She located the one from Tali’Zorah first, opening it up with a smile of relief. She read through it and found her smile growing with pride.

Tali’Zorah vas Normandy had been made an _Admiral._ The young quarian she had first met while on her pilgrimage had turned into such a confident, capable and knowledgeable woman that her people had seen fit to grant her their highest title. While Shepard had been incarcerated on Earth Tali had been working toward peace between her people and the geth, as Admiral Anderson had informed her. In fact, she had just barely managed to head off a war by the skin of her teeth by convincing the other Admirals that the Reapers were a bigger threat. The Admirals still hadn’t _completely_ come around, Tali told her, but they were getting there.

With the help of Legion, Tali had arranged a peace conference between her people’s representatives and representatives of the geth to discuss at the very least a cessation of hostilities while the galaxy fought the Reapers. Tali said she would do her best to get them to work together but if they just agreed to stop fighting one another for the moment, she would be happy.

Although it meant both Tali and Legion would be unable to join her aboard the _Normandy_ , Shepard was happy. It was a significant weight off her shoulders to know that her friends were okay. It also helped to know the geth and the quarians wouldn’t be at each other’s throats any time soon.

She located the next message quickly, noting the precise and elegant wording. Only Samara could make an electronic message _elegant._ The Justicar explained that her code demanded she assist in the fight against the Reapers in the place where it was most needed, and that was certainly at the vanguard of the offensive, aboard the _Normandy_. Shepard checked the galaxy map, confirmed that Illium wasn’t too far out of their way, and responded to Samara asking her to meet them there.

They had a few hours until the _Normandy_ would hit the relay, so Shepard located the final message ahead of entering a change in course. This one was from Jack, and as filled with expletives and bad grammar as she would have expected. Jack had apparently joined the Alliance – Shepard’s eyebrows rose at that – and taken up a position at Grissom Academy teaching biotic kids – Shepard’s eyebrows almost flew off the top of her head at _that_. Jack told her that she ‘loved the little freaks’ but that she would happily leave them in the capable hands of the Academy’s principal Kahlee Sanders if it meant she could rejoin Shepard and ‘blow some more shit up’. Shepard blinked a couple of times, then sent her the same message she had sent to Samara, asking her to meet them on Illium.

Although she searched, she was unable to find any messages from Thane or Jacob. She hoped they were both all right.

Now that she had two strong biotics to add to her crew, Shepard could start to see her plan of attack take shape, at least in terms of her ground team. She entered the new course in on the galaxy map, then headed back up to her quarters to get to work on planning out a strategy.

 

* * *

 

A couple of hours later she had made a good start. The station was nothing special; a standard, mass-produced model seen around the galaxy in all kinds of different places performing all sorts of functions. It was an older version of the model, though, which presented some extra opportunities. The newer iterations all used eezo cores for power, while the older ones were still based on fusion reactors and consequently far less stable. This one had a fusion-based power core, which meant that if no other means of shutting down Cerberus’ operations could be found, they could just overload the reactor.

It was both reassuring and disquieting to know this, because if she knew about it, so did Cerberus. She wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if it had already been rigged as a failsafe, to be used in the event of an infiltration such as the one they were planning. Of course, that could play right into her hands if she could capture it.

The chime at her door sounded, and Shepard called out, “Come in.”

Nathan stepped in, seeming almost on the verge of breaking into laughter. She stood up to meet him, giving him a curious look. “You have no idea what I just went through to get up here without being seen,” he told her.

“What happened?” she asked, amused. She was happy to see him. As soon as he had entered the room, she found the stress from the past couple of hours of planning beginning to recede. On a whim she reached out and took his hand, feeling a little unsure about doing it. Their relationship – or whatever it was – was still so new, nothing had been defined yet, including their casual behaviour with one another.

To her delight, he smiled at her and gripped her hand tightly. “Well, the first time I tried to come up, I got on at the cargo bay and Donnelly got on at Engineering. He ended up going to the CIC, so I had to get off there too and try to pretend I had a reason for being there,” Nathan explained, entwining his fingers with hers. His voice had a deep, resonating quality to it that she hadn’t really noticed before. It sent pleasant little tingles down her spine. Between that and the way he was holding her hand, Shepard felt herself starting to relax.

He continued. “Then after Donnelly had left for the cockpit and I had spent sufficient time faking my way through getting a report off one of the crew stations, I tried to come the rest of the way up. But Traynor followed me into the elevator, so I had to go to the crew deck instead. It was much easier to think of a reason for being _there_. I just grabbed some food, hopped back on the elevator, and finally made it.” He held up a ration bar, then stuffed it back into his pocket.

She couldn’t help laughing. “That took a lot of effort.”

He grinned, reaching a hand out and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. It was such a normal, affectionate thing to do. She loved it. “Totally worth it,” he said. He leaned down and kissed her.

She let her free hand rest on his stomach and melted into him, listening to the hum of the fish tank and the soft tones of the music she was playing as her lips moved against his.

“So, did you come up here just to visit me, then?” she asked softly when the kiss ended.

He shrugged a little sheepishly. “Is that a bad thing?”

She smiled. “Of course not. I’m glad you came. But… I do have work to do,” she told him regretfully.

He nodded. “For the assault on that recruitment station, right. I got the message from Miranda. How’s that going?”

She turned away and paced a few steps. “Well enough. We’ll be stopping at Illium first to pick up a couple more people and then we’ll hit the place straight after that.”

“More of your old team?”

“Yes. Jack and Samara are the strongest biotics I’ve ever known.”

“Biotics, huh? I had a couple of biotics on my old squad. Dangerfield, although she was primarily a sniper, and Ngandu. Ngandu was such an asshole but he could throw one hell of a singularity.”

Shepard listened, interested. She had never heard him talk about his old team before. It was easy to forget that before he came to be a part of her team, he had commanded his own squad. “Where are they all now?” she asked.

He shook his head, agitated. “I don’t know. Last I heard, three months ago, they were stationed on Garnerus out in the Terminus Systems. My old XO Harris took over, so I know they’re in good hands. If they were still on Garnerus when Earth was hit, they’ll _probably_ be all right…” he trailed off, grimacing.

She went to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Do you want me to ask Hackett to find out?” she asked.

He blinked and looked up, startled. “Oh, shit, well yeah, I suppose you _could_ do that, couldn’t you? I mean, shit, he just lent you a whole fleet, in terms of favours this would be small potatoes.”

She felt her face warming a little. “He doesn’t just do things because I askhim nicely,” she protested.

Nathan grinned. “I know that, but you _do_ have a direct line to the man and you _do_ have the ability to ask him for favours no ordinary officer would be able to.” He winked. “That’s kind of cool. Besides, isn’t he a friend of yours?”

Shepard grimaced. “Not really. I’d say we have a healthy respect for one another, but that’s about it.”

“Well, that’s more than most people get from him. I haven’t even spoken to the man.” He leaned down and kissed her on the nose. “Sorry for teasing you. It would be great if you could find out if my old team is okay.”

Shepard had the feeling that he was thinking of her as _cute_ again. She wasn’t sure what she thought about that. On one hand it was nice knowing that her lover had so much affection for her and wanted to look after her. But on the other, being thought of as cute often meant being thought of as needing protection, and she couldn’t afford to have one of her marines jumping out of perfectly good cover to save her ass if she took a bullet in the field.

“Briggs…” she began, not sure how to broach the subject. In the end she decided to be direct. “There’s another conversation we should have had this morning.”

He stepped back, seeming to realise this would be serious. “Okay.”

“We’re going to be going out into the field a lot together. When we’re out there, you can’t be trying to take care of me. I need to be able to trust that you’ll do the job I give you without hesitating, even if that’s to stand back in cover while I run into a firefight. I need to know that out there you’ll treat me like your CO, and nothing else.”

He made a face. “I knew this would come up. Look, I’ve thought about it, and I know you’re right. This won’t work between us unless I can do that. I won’t pretend to like it if you decide to charge into heavy melee with a gunship or something but you know what?” He gave her a lop-sided grin. “I know who you are. You’re _Commander fucking Shepard_. No puny little gunship is going to take you down. I think… I _hope_ I’ll remember that when it happens.”

She grinned at him. It _did_ sounds as though he had thought about this. “If it helps, I’ve taken down at least three gunships on foot so far.”

Nathan shook his head. “That is so hot.”

Shepard laughed. “Get out of here, Lieutenant.”

He tossed her a quick salute and winked. “Yes, ma’am.”


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

Shepard stood behind Joker’s chair on the bridge in full armour, helmet clamped to her thigh, peering out the viewport at the station ahead. They were cruising in close under full stealth, taking advantage of the lack of windows to get a closer look. The station was relatively small and its outer hull had clearly seen better days. It looked entirely unremarkable, but exactly as the schematics Traynor had found said it would look. It resembled a thick, four-storey disk.

“I don’t like this, Commander,” Joker grumbled as he swung the ship around the station’s outer perimeter.

“Mm,” she murmured pensively, peering at the station as if it would help her see through its hull.

She didn’t like it either. She was getting a bad feeling about the place, but she couldn’t put her finger on why. Perhaps it was the lack of any defensive craft? Although that actually made sense – an Alliance recruitment station wouldn’t employ defensive craft. What bandit or slaver would look at a station full of Alliance troops as a tempting target? It would be a dead giveaway that something was up if a fleet suddenly parked itself in the station’s orbit. Of course Cerberus wouldn’t have a fleet guarding the place. But no ships at all? Something about it just seemed off.

“Life signs?” she asked.

As they moved in close to the station EDI had hacked into its internal monitoring system, putting her electronic warfare suite to good use. The AI’s new mobile platform was sitting in one of the shuttles, ready to go, but she had more than enough processing power to also maintain a presence on the bridge. Her voice issued from the comm output. _“I am detecting multiple life signs, mostly centred on communal sleeping areas. It is currently 0100 hours station time. I believe most of the crew are asleep.”_

“Give me a visual, EDI.”

One of the screens at Joker’s peripheral lit up with a schematic showing a number of red dots gathered in three separate rooms at one edge of the station. There were also red dots scattered at various other points, particularly in what they had identified as the command centre.

Shepard frowned as she studied the display. One slice of the station at the opposite edge to the crew quarters was filled with dots, but as she watched they flickered, fading in and out. “What are those?” she asked, indicating the cluster.

_“I cannot be certain,”_ EDI replied. _“But the pattern of these signatures indicates life forms similar to the Cerberus troops we encountered on Mars. I hypothesise that they are humans at various stages of being turned into husks.”_

Shepard swore quietly to herself. Her guess had been correct. This was where the Illusive Man was creating his husked troops. _Damn._

On one hand, she had really hoped to be wrong about that. There was no way to reverse the husking process. She couldn’t save these people… if they were still people at all. _Fuck._ On the other hand, though, finding and shutting down such an important Cerberus operation would be a huge win for the Alliance. Robbing Cerberus of a huge chunk of its forces meant removing a dangerous wildcard from the upcoming battle against the Reapers.

The sheer number of dots on the display meant that their plan of attack had just been chosen for them. She couldn’t let any husked troops survive and she didn’t have the numbers to go in and take them all out one by one. They’d have to destroy the station completely.

That meant one of her teams would need to evacuate the civilians, while the other took the command centre, disabled any remote overrides, and manually overloaded the power core. Fine; they had planned for this, just like they had planned for many different possibilities. They could do it.

“Bring us in for the drop-off, Joker. EDI, disable all intruder alarms and security systems on the station,” Shepard ordered as she turned to head down to the shuttle bay. As she walked she tapped her in-ear comm. “Ground teams, this is Shepard. Listen up. There’s an army of husked troops on the station, so we’re going to blow the whole thing. Alpha team will head for the command centre and the core. Beta will get approximately two dozen civilians out of their beds and into escape pods.”

As she walked she nodded to Traynor, who had taken up Shepard’s usual position at the galaxy map. “No comm activity yet, Commander,” she reported. “I should be able to intercept any transmissions they try to make.” The holo was currently displaying a map of the Sinerand system along with a multitude of technical readouts, which Traynor was studying intensely.

Shepard couldn’t even begin to understand them. “Keep on it, Specialist,” she replied, hopping into the elevator and hitting the button for the cargo bay. She switched back to her in-ear communicator. “Garrus, some of these civilians may not be so innocent. This is Cerberus, after all. I trust your judgement, but I want as many of them alive as possible. Their intel could be valuable.”

_“Got it, Commander.”_

She had placed Garrus in command of Beta team, which consisted of Vega, Zaeed, Kasumi and the newly arrived Samara. Shepard herself would lead Alpha team, which included EDI, Jack, Miranda and Nathan. She was pleased she had managed to obtain such a balanced team overall, and one which split so nicely into two. Each team had technical and biotic specialists, as well as some muscle and pure firepower.

When the elevator reached the cargo bay the twin whines of both Kodiaks filled her ears as they waited for Joker’s signal to disembark. She jogged out and grabbed her guns, mag-locking them into place on the back of her armour and at her hips. She carried her usual assault rifle, heavy pistol and sniper rifle but had also added her favourite missile launcher. It was well worth the few kilos of extra weight. It had served her well on Menae and you never knew what could be around the corner. As she hurried over to the shuttle to join her team, she sent a quick plea to the universe asking that no Reapers appear out of nowhere this time.

The shuttle ride over was uneventful, though she had to assume they would have been spotted as soon as they left the _Normandy’s_ hangar bay despite EDI’s attempts to override their electronic surveillance systems. There was only so much EDI could do. Standing behind Nathan in the pilot’s seat she tapped her helmet comm. “Traynor, anything?”

“All quiet, ma’am.”

Yeah, she had a bad feeling about this. Why wouldn’t they be calling for help?

“Something wrong, Commander?” Nathan asked. He was doing a good job of keeping things professional so far, but his tone still displayed a hint of more personal concern. She couldn’t begrudge him that.

She leaned on the back of the co-pilot’s seat. “Maybe,” she replied. “They should be calling for help right now, but they’re not. Why?” She answered her own question. “Either they have no backup to call, or they’re so well-equipped that they don’t need it.”

Nathan glanced up at her for a moment, taking his eyes away from the piloting interface. “Maybe they can’t call out.”

She frowned. That was another possibility. She shook her head as different ideas as to why that might be flitted through her mind. Whatever the reason was, though, she couldn’t justify scrubbing the mission on such flimsy evidence. All she had was a bad feeling and a lack of comm chatter. If Nathan was right and they _couldn’t_ call for help, those civilians in there might be in need of rescuing. They had to go in.

Alpha team’s shuttle swung into place at a docking point on the side of the station closest to the command centre. Through the viewport she barely caught a glimpse of Beta’s shuttle as Cortez flew it around to the other side of the station. She couldn’t see the _Normandy_ ; Joker was under strict instructions to stay back, stealthed and watching the relay.

She slipped her helmet on, quickly double-checking the seals in a routine that was now becoming a ritual, as Nathan powered the shuttle down. They moved back into the passenger compartment to join the rest of the team and she gave a quick briefing. “You’re on point with me when there’s room, Briggs. Jack, Miranda, EDI, stay behind us. EDI, any questions before we go?”

This would be the first test of EDI’s new mobile platform, or ‘sexy robot body’ as Joker liked to call it. Although she didn’t require the extra armour or the modesty, EDI had dressed in one of Miranda’s black jumpsuits, presumably to put the crew more at ease by trying to seem less overtly mechanical. The jumpsuit fit her well; the two were very similarly proportioned. She had decided to carry a sub-machine gun and a pistol, which was again similar to Miranda. Shepard wondered if EDI was trying to emulate the woman.

Shepard had gone over the mobile platform’s specs and was pleased with the amount of armour and shielding the AI had managed to acquire. It wouldn’t match up to hers or Briggs’ but it was a big step up from Jack’s. EDI had programmed in a nice little incinerate programme too. Shepard had to admit she was looking forward to having EDI try _that_ out.

“No, Commander, I am fully prepared,” EDI replied, sounding completely confident. Good.

Shepard turned her attention to the group’s biotic specialist. “Jack? I know you’re being thrown right into the thick of it.”

Jack had changed since Shepard had last seen her six months ago. She had grown her hair out, or had extensions put in. She now had a top-knot of sorts, as well as a couple of new tattoos. She also dressed differently now that she didn’t have to make do with whatever she could find. The outfit she had arrived in, a black leather jacket she had paired with a white tank, suited her well. Now, of course, she wore a borrowed set of light armour in Alliance blue, as did Miranda. Shepard had ordered full vacuum seals for this mission. She didn’t want to take any chances.

“Shepard, please,” Jack protested, voice sounding tinny through the helmet’s speakers. “I fucking thrive on this shit.”

“Fair enough,” Shepard replied with a wry grin. “Briggs? Miranda?”

“Ready,” Miranda replied, adjusting the straps to her armour yet again. To her credit, she only looked to be mildly uncomfortable in the unfamiliar hardsuit. She had also managed to completely refrain from antagonising Jack, which Shepard appreciated to no end.

“Good to go,” Briggs confirmed. He appeared relatively comfortable compared to Miranda and Jack, but Shepard could tell he was keyed up with nerves and adrenaline, as he usually was before battle.

Her team was as ready as they would ever be. “Let’s get this done, then.” Without further preamble, Shepard drew her assault rifle and opened the hatch. Rifle up and ready, she stepped out into the outer foyer of the airlock.

The small space was empty. Hurrying over to the airlock door, she peered through the window. Also empty. She shoved it open and stepped inside. There would be just enough room for all five of them to cycle through at once.

The door to the station itself didn’t have a window, which screamed ambush. Shepard started the pressurisation cycle running and indicated for Nathan to take the opposite side of the door while the others pressed themselves back against the walls. It was quiet while they waited, the only sounds being the soft hiss of her own breathing within her helmet and the whoosh of breathable air as it was pumped into the airlock.

“EDI, life signs?” she asked.

“None, Commander.”

None? At such a perfect choke point? Her uneasiness was growing, although she was careful to keep it from showing. Something was _off_ about this place, but her team could feel that themselves. They didn’t need their commander getting freaked out too. “Be ready anyway,” she said, voice cool and steady.

The cycle ended and with a mechanical click the wide airlock door swung open onto a dim, empty corridor. Shepard ducked out of cover to scan the area. The corridor was wide, with a ridged, non-slip deck overhung by gunmetal grey girders and ribbed with metal supports. There were plenty of places to hide, but no targets registered on her HUD.

She signalled her team to move forward, stifling the urge to try and reduce the sound of her footsteps. There was no need; Cerberus would know exactly where they had boarded.

“Creepy,” Jack muttered in a quiet sing-song voice.

“’Creepy’? I do not understand the sentiment, Jack,” EDI spoke up quietly. “There is nothing here. Is it not comforting to know that you are alone, except for your team, and there is therefore no possibility of a hostile confrontation?”

“That’s not the point, EDI,” Nathan replied as he made his way up the corridor on the opposite side to Shepard. “It’s not about what you can see, it’s about what you _can’t_ see. You never know what might be around the next corner.”

“I can make a substantive assumption that if we do encounter hostile forces around the next corner, they will be comprised of Cerberus troopers. I should think that would obvious.”

“You’re forgetting one thing, EDI,” Nathan told her sagely.

“I do not forget, Lieutenant Briggs.”

Nathan ignored that. “You’re forgetting one thing. What if…” he paused for effect, “they’re _not_ Cerberus troops?”

“The probability of hostile forces being made up of Cerberus soldiers is ninety-four point—“

“EDI, you’re missing the point,” Jack took up the thread. Shepard couldn’t see Miranda from her position on point but she was sure her XO’s eyes would be rolling by now. “What if they’re _something else?_ Something we had no idea was here? Something hiding in the deep, dark recesses of—“

“Enough. Focus,” Shepard interrupted. They were coming up on another door. A neat official-looking Alliance placard labelled it ‘Recruit Processing’. According to the map on her omnitool, they would need to go through the processing area to reach an elevator which would take them directly up to the command centre. As much as Shepard would rather not be quite so obvious as coming in through the front door, she didn’t have any choice. It was the only way to reach the command centre.

She pressed her back against the wall next to the door and signalled for EDI to hack the lock. Nathan mirrored her on the other side. She met his eyes for a moment, noticing a slight shiftiness. He was a little on edge, too, although he was hiding it well with banter. She nodded firmly, trying to convey reassurance and confidence. He grimaced, but seemed to steady himself a bit.

The door slid open and she crouched to make herself a smaller target, leaning around to take a look.

She moved slowly into the room, keeping low, rifle up, always staying near cover. The room was large and dimly lit to coincide with the station’s night cycle. There were shadows everywhere, and plenty of places to hide; benches, desks, alcoves, stairwells. She motioned for her team to spread out and clear the room.

Again, as her targeting VI confirmed, they were the only ones there.

She straightened reluctantly, but kept her rifle ready against her chest. “Miranda, EDI, Nathan, see what you can find on these terminals. We need evidence of what Cerberus has been doing here,” she ordered, voice sounding small and tinny to her ears in the large, empty room. “Jack, we’re watching their backs. Stay left. I have the right.”

This room was even creepier than the empty hallway had been. It was set up as she would expect a room dedicated to processing new recruits would be. There was a small waiting area filled with chairs, a public extranet terminal and a couple of vending machines, a marked queuing area, a bank of counters and a cluster of desks behind it. There were pleasant little aesthetic touches everywhere, including plants and artwork as well as the inevitable Alliance recruitment propaganda. But as she ranged through the room, Shepard spotted various unsettling things.

There was a baseball cap similar to Joker’s sitting by itself on one of the seats in the waiting area, looking as though someone had set it down for a moment and would be back any second to pick it up. A jacket was slung haphazardly back over a chair a short distance away. A duffel bag lay by itself in front of one of the counters. A couple of the terminals were still switched on. A forgotten, cold mug of what smelled like coffee sat on one of the desks.

The area seemed so lived in, so functional and so comfortable. It only made her more uneasy. Recruits had come here expecting to be inducted into the Alliance, looking forward to doing their part for the galaxy against the Reapers. Instead they had been taken and turned into the very thing they were signing up to fight against.

“Commander, these terminals do not have the ability to access the central server,” Miranda informed her over the comm. “The information we can gain from them is limited.”

“Where can we find the central server?” Shepard asked, burying her feelings deep down as she scanned one of the open stairwells with both eyes and rifle.

“It will most likely be near the power core,” Miranda surmised. “It will require a hard-wired connection to an uninterruptable power supply. However, there may be a remote connection in the command centre.”

“All right. You three have two minutes to download what you can, then we’re moving on.” It was longer than she really wanted to stay here.

The three of them murmured quick acknowledgements, hard at work. When two minutes were up, they formed up once more before the elevator that would take them up to the command centre. It responded to her hail quickly, but when it opened Shepard couldn’t suppress a grimace. It was _tiny._ They would be sitting ducks in there when they reached the command centre, and they already knew there would be hostiles up there. “EDI, are you sure there’s no other way in?” she asked.

“I am certain, Commander,” EDI replied.

Shepard sighed. “Well, we’ll have to work with it then. Miranda, Jack, EDI, stay close behind Nathan and I. Take advantage of our stronger shields.”

They all squeezed into the elevator, Shepard and Nathan flanking the door with Jack behind Shepard and the taller Miranda behind Nathan. EDI slipped in behind Miranda. Shepard reached out to get the elevator moving, already tossing around in her head various ideas for when they arrived at the command centre, most involving a generous spread of grenades. Before she could hit the button, though, Nathan abruptly raised his hand to stop her.

“Wait, I think I know a trick we could use,” he said. “My old tech expert, Corporal Sporritt, taught me how to harmonise and overlap two sets of shields so each set automatically reinforced the other. It increased their combined strength threefold. It won’t take me long to set up.”

Shepard raised an eyebrow. That sounded like a neat trick, but she had never heard of it before. There had to be a reason for that. “What’s the catch?” she asked.

“We’ll need to stay within half a metre of one another,” he replied.

_Ah._ “And if we don’t?”

“Nothing too drastic. The harmonisation will break and we might get a bit of feedback.”

She frowned. “A bit of feedback? How much is ‘a bit’?”

“We might get a bit of a jolt, that’s all. With armour on we won’t feel much,” he explained.

She nodded slowly. Definitely worth it. “Do it,” she ordered.

Nathan spent a few moments typing on his omnitool, then hers chimed. “Run the program I just sent you,” he instructed, moving over to stand by her side.

She did as he said, and when the innocuous little file of code had finished executing, her shields suddenly flared. Nathan’s flickered in response, and the shield charge indicator on her HUD shot up to three hundred and twelve percent. She was impressed. “Nice job, Lieutenant,” she said, smiling up at him. He grinned in response.

“Get a room,” Jack muttered.

Shepard ignored her, tearing her eyes away from Nathan. She hit the button for the command centre and they began to rise.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

Nathan couldn’t help throwing furtive glances in Shepard’s direction as the elevator rose smoothly toward the command centre. Christ, he hoped his shield harmonisation trick would work.

No, he didn’t need to hope, he told himself firmly. He _knew_ it would work. After all, he and Sporritt had tested it plenty of times before. They had rigged it on dummies and shot the hell out of it so many times he had lost count. The only thing they hadn’t done is test it under live fire conditions. But surely nothing could go wrong that they hadn’t already tested for. The gunfire would be coming from living, breathing Cerberus troops, sure, but it was still gunfire. They couldn’t possibly fire in a way he and Sporritt hadn’t anticipated.

Sneaking another glance at Shepard, Nathan saw her raise her Mattock and set it firmly against her shoulder, ready to sight and fire. The crimson N7 stripe on her right arm shone in sharp contrast to the blackness of her armour. No, nothing could possibly go wrong, even if they hadn’t been able to test under live fire conditions. This was Commander Shepard, even if something _did_ go wrong, she would get them out of it. Easy.

She noticed him staring this time, and cocked an eyebrow beneath her visor. Right, pay attention, they were about to reach the top floor. Nathan raised his own rifle and carefully angled his body out from the wall so he was providing Miranda and EDI with room behind the cover of his shields while staying close enough to Shepard to allow the shield harmonisation to work.

The elevator pinged and the doors slid open with a soft, pleasant _whoosh_.

A tortured roar and a chorus of low moans battered his ear drums. Nathan froze. His nose was assaulted with the stink of blood, corroded armour plating and something acrid and heavy that his helmet didn’t quite filter out. _Reaper troops._ Standing not more than ten metres away. Right in front of him. With nothing between them and him but a shield that suddenly seemed very flimsy.

Ice trickled slowly down his spine. A dozen husks, at least half that number of marauders and a brute were all squeezed into the small space. As the elevator doors opened all spun to stare at the intruders.

_What the hell were Reaper troops doing here?_

His adrenaline surged as the marauders caught sight of the intruders and opened fire. The husks began to shamble towards them and the brute let out another ear-splitting roar. Nathan couldn’t decide what to fire on first; desperately he tried to find some sort of equilibrium. “Ninety-four percent chance of Cerberus troops, huh, EDI?” The wisecrack tumbled from his lips haphazardly. His voice didn’t sound nearly as steady as he wanted it to sound.

Jack had started firing reflexively, clearly surprised. “Fuck me,” she breathed as the husks began to lope toward them in earnest.

Shepard’s steady, confident voice cut through the fear that had gripped his mind. “Suppress, now,” she ordered. Without hesitation she opened fire on the approaching husks.

The team jolted into action. Nathan followed her example and sprayed the husks with incendiary rounds, trying to aim for the closest ones. Miranda tossed a warp at the burning husks, setting off a chain of minor explosions that sent some of the husks spinning to the ground. Jack was on top of the rest, flinging some sort of biotic explosion at them that reminded Nathan of a stone skipping over water. Three or four of them were tossed into the air, limbs flailing, some landing amongst the marauders and knocking a couple of them off their feet as well.

“Briggs, Miranda, get those marauders’ shields down,” Shepard called over the loud cracks of gunfire, voice never wavering. “Jack, you’re on husk duty. EDI, incinerate that brute, fire on the husks.”

The marauders recovered quickly after the initial onslaught of tech and biotics, and the harmonised shields began to take a beating from the concentrated fire of all seven. They hissed and flickered wildly, but so far seemed to be holding. Shield strength fluctuated as the programme fought to keep up with spikes in damage, but it never dropped below fifty percent. Nathan breathed an internal sigh of relief.

He switched over to disruptor rounds then primed an overload and tossed it at one of the marauders, pleased when it both stunned the thing and completely knocked out its shields. Garrus’ improvements had made a huge difference. Shepard finished the marauder off with an incendiary round straight through its eye. She appeared to be splitting her fire between the marauders and the brute, leaving the husks for Jack and EDI.

That brute was going to become a problem very soon. They only reason it hadn’t charged them yet was the control panels and other furniture that stood between it and them, but it was slowly lumbering its way around the obstacles, approaching the point where it would be able to charge.

Shepard had clearly spotted it too. “Stay on your targets. I’ve got the brute.”

Her voice was calm and confident, as if she was conducting a training exercise at the Alliance Academy on Earth on a nice, sunny day. Despite that, Nathan found himself having to forcibly tamp down on the worry that rose up at the thought of her taking on another giant armoured monster by herself.

He was being ridiculous, he told himself as he threw another overload at a marauder and fired on the next one with disruptor rounds. As its shields came down it caught the tail end of the warp Miranda threw at the first and both detonated, collapsing to their knees. He aimed carefully, trying to score headshots, and managed to at least catch both in the shoulder area.

Yeah, he was being ridiculous. This was exactly what they had talked about the other night. He _knew_ Shepard could take down a brute on her own. He had watched her do it on Menae. So why was he so worried? It was silly. His overload was up; he tossed it at the next marauder while sneaking a quick glance at the brute. EDI’s incinerates and Shepard’s inferno grenades had slowed it down but it was closer than he had thought.

Shepard was on top of it. “Move!” she shouted, and they all darted out of the elevator and into the room itself.

Before he could go more than three steps, he felt a hard jolt of feedback course through his armour. His teeth rattled as he jerked, stumbling crookedly toward a nearby terminal housing. An ominous bang came from the shield generator on his back, shorting his shields out completely.

Holy fuck, they weren’t supposed to do _that._ He slid in behind the terminal, back colliding with the housing as he half-fell, half-dropped into cover. He was already searching for Shepard. She would be on the other end of that feedback loop, out in the middle of the room with no cover and a brute about to charge her. _Shit!_

She wasn’t in the middle of the room, but she had clearly been hit by the feedback. She was half-collapsed against the wall, legs shaking as she struggled to stay on her feet and twist around to face the brute. At this rate, though, there was no way she would be able to dodge it. Nathan caught his breath in horror as the heavily armoured creature lowered its shoulder and charged.

He immediately forgot about the marauders and started pouring fire into the brute instead. He managed to get off a few bursts before it slammed into Shepard, crushing her into the wall. An ear-piercing shriek came from her armour as the ceramic plating scraped along the metal wall and smashed against the armour plating of the brute itself. Her body slid down and disappeared behind its bulk.

_Fuck, no!_ He started firing again, aiming for its slightly less armoured back. EDI was throwing incinerates at it now and adding her SMG fire to his while Miranda and Jack kept the remaining marauders off them. The brute roared in pain, bringing its arm back and unloading a massive punch in Shepard’s general direction before finally falling to the deck, unmoving.

“Shit, Shepard’s down!” He could see her now, slumped against the wall with her legs pinned by the dead brute. Her head was lolling forward. She wasn’t moving.

“Get her!” Miranda demanded unnecessarily. He was already rushing over, heedless of the remaining marauders, heart firmly in his throat. Had that last punch hit her?

He dropped to his knees next to her and grasped her helmet in both hands, peering through the visor to find her eyes. He felt a wave of relief wash over him as he saw they were open, albeit slightly glazed over. “Shepard? Talk to me,” he demanded. Her nose was bleeding profusely, which meant she had probably hit her head, but he saw recognition in her eyes as she blinked up at him.

“’A bit of a jolt,’ Briggs?” she quoted him irritably, slurring her words only slightly. She shook her head as if trying to clear it.

“Jesus,” Nathan swore, arms aching to hold her. “I had no idea that would happen. It’s never happened before.”

“Good to know." She groaned. "I feel like shit.”

He quirked a tiny smile. She was okay. Thank all the gods and spirits in the universe, she was okay.

He glanced up as Jack came to stand behind him. “Hot damn, Briggs, that tech shit of yours did a hell of a number on her. Guess we don’t need those fuckers,” she jerked a thumb toward a pile of dead husks, “when you’re around.”

Nathan felt a surge of anger boil up from within. He glared at her, not sure if she was joking or not. Regardless, that was _not_ fucking funny. Not even close. Shepard could have _died_. And it would have been his fault.

He looked back down at her, meeting her eyes. They were mostly back to normal now, the initial vagueness having faded, likely due to the wonders of medigel. She didn’t seem pissed, which surprised him. He was fully expecting another dressing down, just like the one he got after Mars. Fuck knows he deserved it.

Instead she just offered him her hand. He took it, relishing the strong grip he got in return. He was beginning to understand that his feelings for her might run a lot deeper than physical attraction. “Help me up,” she said with an obvious wince.

He shifted his grip on her hand and rose into a crouch, slipping an arm around beneath her shoulders to get some leverage and dragging her out from beneath the dead brute. He helped her scramble to her feet and kept a watchful hand on her elbow until she had regained her balance. She shook her head once more as if to free herself from lingering disorientation and he frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked quietly. “That last punch…”

“I’m fine,” she replied. “Hits like that are what the armour is for. I ducked and sucked down medigel like nobody’s business.” He nodded, feeling only marginally relieved, and she turned her attention to the now-empty command centre. Back to business. “EDI, the life-signs we saw in here weren’t registering as husks. What happened?” she asked.

“I am not sure, Commander,” EDI replied. “I have direct access to the station’s onboard sensors but they are showing me readings that have just been proven false.”

“Are you saying the sensors aren’t working? Or that the readings are fabricated?” Shepard frowned. She sniffed, wrinkling her nose, but didn’t pull her helmet off to wipe the blood away. She had ordered full vacuum seals for the mission. She seemed to be unwilling to rescind that order despite the air registering as safe to breathe. Clearly she didn’t trust those readings.

“The sensors are working. I can only conclude that the readings are indeed fabricated. I am unable to locate the correct readings.”

Miranda appeared taken aback. “EDI, they were able to trick you?”

“That is correct.” The AI sounded as surprised as Miranda, who had turned pale, mouth set in a grim line.

“They must have planned for your presence. And that means they knew we were coming.” Shepard sighed. “This was all just one big trap." Shepard switched to her comm. "Garrus, report.”

A calm, quiet response came over their in-ear comm. “ _Shepard? We’re approaching the living quarters now. All quiet here.”_

“It’s a trap, Garrus. We just got ambushed by Reaper troops. Keep your eyes open.”

There was silence for a moment while Garrus seemed to digest that. _“Reaper troops? Damn. All right, we’ll keep our guard up. We’ll check for civilians first then meet up with you. I have a feeling there won’t be any, though, so we shouldn't be long.”_

“No, check for civilians then get back to the shuttle,” Shepard countermanded him. “We can handle blowing the place on our own.”

_“Shepard, if it was a trap you know they’re gunning for you personally. You need back-up or a diversion of some sort—“_

Shepard cut off his argument with a snapped, “That was an order, Garrus.”

Nathan heard an audible sigh, and Garrus sounded less than pleased when he responded. “ _All right, Commander. See you back on the_ Normandy _.”_

Nathan had to agree with Garrus. He knew part of that was that little kernel of fear for Shepard’s safety that he didn’t seem to be able to push down far enough, but part of it was practical, too. “He’s got a point, Commander,” he spoke up. “If there are more Reaper troops here they’ll be coming for us – for you – now. Can’t we get the hell out of here and destroy the station from the _Normandy_ now that we know no civilians will be caught in the crossfire?”

She shot him a warning glance, but he set his jaw and ignored it. If Garrus could question orders so could he, dammit. He wasn’t overstepping any bounds.

“The _Normandy_ doesn’t have the firepower for that, Lieutenant,” she replied. “We’re staying.” Nathan exchanged a glance with Miranda, who seemed about to argue too, but Shepard had already moved on. “We need information. Miranda, find out what the hell Reaper troops are doing here. Specifically, I want to know if Cerberus created them or if they were captured and brought in. If Cerberus have the capability to convert people into proper Reaper constructs they just moved a lot higher up the priority list in this war.” Miranda nodded and got to work.

Shepard turned to EDI. “EDI, I want an accurate layout of this station along with the true sensor readings. They’ve got to be in there somewhere. I don’t care if they knew you’d be here or not. Nobody is better than you at cyber-warfare.”

“Yes, Commander,” the AI replied. Nathan could have sworn she seemed a little more determined than she had previously, as if Shepard’s pep talk had an effect on her. It was strange to realise that what was essentially a very powerful mech was so advanced that it – _she –_ could possess feelings and emotions. But EDI did seem to experience both. It made her more… relatable. More like another species, rather than an artificial life form. Nathan found himself responding to her in the same way he was able to relate to, say, Garrus.

“Briggs,” Shepard continued, “see if you can get that feedback issue fixed. We might need your little trick again.”

Shit, she wanted to use it again? Even though it had backfired and almost gotten her killed? Nathan wasn’t sure whether he should be proud or worried about that. “Aye aye, ma’am,” he replied. Opening his omnitool he set to work. He had an idea of what might have caused the issue, if he could just tweak the code a little in certain places…

Shepard prowled the room restlessly for a few paces before opening a terminal herself. Jack hung over her shoulder. “What are you doing, Shepard?” she asked.

“Looking for something we can use,” the commander muttered in reply.

She was quiet for a while, and Nathan was absorbed in his coding until he heard her swear. “What?” Jack demanded.

Nathan glanced up. Shepard hit something on the keypad and a hologram appeared. It showed a well-groomed man in a very expensive-looking business suit holding what was probably an equally expensive cigar and sporting a smug smirk. It had been reduced to two thirds life-size so it appeared he was standing on the terminal facing Shepard, but it hadn't been shrunk quite enough to prevent her having to look up at the man’s face. Nathan had a feeling that might have been on purpose.

“Is that live?” Miranda demanded as she caught sight of it.

“No, it’s a recording,” Shepard growled. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at the hologram.

The man started to speak. “Shepard. I thought you might be interested in this little station. I’m glad to see you’re still as predictable as ever. No doubt you’re going to try and get to the power core so you can blow it up. You’re always so quick to blow things up, Shepard. It’s cute.” He took a drag from his cigarette and Nathan saw Shepard exchange a knowing glance with Miranda. “I would caution you against trying that, however. You’ve no doubt already met some of my enhanced troops? There are quite a few of them between you and the power core. Oh, feel free to verify this. As soon as you accessed this message I lowered the firewalls surrounding the station’s sensors. EDI should be able to access them now.”

Shepard cast a sharp glance at the AI, who nodded. “He is correct, Commander.” A terminal near Shepard lit up with a schematic of the station.

Nathan moved around so he could see it. He whistled under his breath. The businessman wasn’t lying. The route between the command centre and the power core was covered in milling, flickering red dots. Cerberus’ half-husked troops. Nathan snorted inwardly at the term the man in the hologram had used. _Enhanced, my ass._

Shepard raised an eyebrow at EDI expectantly, who seemed to grasp her meaning without her having to voice it. “I cannot be sure that this is genuine. I was certain the previous readings were correct, but I was proven wrong. However, I _am_ sure that the electronic signature of this readout is different to that one, which increases the likelihood that it is accurate.”

Shepard paced a couple of restless steps, eyes on the screen. “Well, if it _is_ correct, at least Bravo team looks to be in the clear for now,” she muttered.

The businessman was speaking again. The condescending tone he used grated on Nathan’s nerves, but something kept him wary rather than dismissive. The intelligence behind those words seemed to indicate he might _actually_ be smarter than everyone in the room. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you can fight your way through them anyway. Maybe you can. You are _very_ good, after all. But I doubt even you could do it without losing people. Do you really want to risk that when there is another option available?”

“Oh, I don’t like the sound of that,” Miranda murmured.

“Have another look at the sensor readings. While you’ve been fighting your way in here and we’ve been talking, my troops have taken over all other routes off the station. However, you’ll notice I’ve left a single corridor open to you. Take the elevator back down, go through that corridor to the storage area at the end and lock yourselves in. There you can wait, nice and cosy, while I send one of my friends to pick you up.”

Jack snorted. “Fuck that.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Shepard muttered.

Nathan frowned. The onslaught of Reaper troops they had just taken out had led him to believe Cerberus was in league with the Reapers and was trying to kill them. It was the logical assumption. But now it sounded like Cerberus wanted to capture them instead. The Reaper troops had to have just been a delaying tactic. There sure had been a lot of them for that, though.

“It’s your choice, Shepard. Take the hard way out and get people killed… or make the sensible decision.” The hologram of the businessman disappeared, leaving the room silent again.

Shepard sighed. “Love you too, Illusive Bastard. Right, we need options. EDI?”

“The route back to the shuttle appears to have been cut off,” EDI began. “As have all remaining exits from the processing area below us.”

“Except for the one Timmy wants us to take,” Jack muttered, pacing.

“Timmy?” Nathan asked.

“TIM. ’The Illusive Man’,” Jack expanded, making derisive air-quotes.

Nathan raised his eyebrows, sudden realisation dawning. _The Illusive Man._ Miranda and Kasumi had told him plenty about the shadowy, enigmatic leader of Cerberus during their history lesson. This was the man who had paid billions of credits to raise Shepard from the dead to fight the Collectors, then at the last second tried to convince her to hand their base over to him rather than destroy it. She had refused – which explained the reference he had made earlier about Shepard being keen on blowing things up.

It now made more sense why he was trying to capture them rather than kill them, too. He had paid a hell of a lot to resurrect Shepard; now he wanted his investment back. Nathan didn’t like that idea at all.

“ _How_ cut off?” Shepard asked, moving over to the terminal that was currently displaying the sensor readout.

Miranda joined her. She began pointing out various corridors. “Other than the route to the power core, it looks like they’ve concentrated troops along routes that lead to any docking point, the shuttle bay, and the escape pods. It would be very difficult to fight our way through in any of those directions.”

Shepard pointed to an area on the station’s perimeter that seemed comparatively sparsely occupied. “What’s in there?”

“That looks like… the crew mess and the armoury,” Miranda squinted at the diagram. “I wonder why they’ve left the armoury so lightly guarded.”

“Even if we were to obtain more weapons, even heavy weapons, it would be impossible to reach a sensitive enough area of the station from the armoury to be able to accomplish our original goal,” EDI explained.

“I think it’s time we rethought our original goal then,” Shepard said grimly. She paused for a moment, frowning, peering at the readout, and then a slow smile began to spread across her face. “Or maybe we don’t have to.”

Nathan felt a tiny flicker of nerves. He knew that look. He had seen it right before she started telling him how they were going to jump from a twenty-storey balcony to the _Normandy_ with only a biotic to catch them.

Miranda eyed Shepard. “What are you planning, Shepard?” she asked warily.

“Have a little faith, XO.” The look Shepard threw in Miranda’s direction was positively gleeful, but she spoke to Nathan. “Briggs, you’re pretty good with weapon mods. Do you think you could turn my missile launcher into a nice, big bomb?”

“Uh, yes,” he replied cautiously. “I’m not sure how powerful it would be though.”

“Will a room full of weapons help with that?” She raised her eyebrows.

He nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes it would.”

Shepard grinned and keyed her comm over to the squad-wide channel. “Garrus, are you nearly out?”

_“Almost. I was right about there being no civilians in the living quarters. We’re about halfway back to the shuttle now.”_

“Good. Joker, come in.”

“ _Commander?”_

“We’re going to need the _Normandy_ in a few minutes. We won’t be able to make it back to our shuttle. EDI will give you the coordinates.”

_“No problem, Commander. See you soon.”_

Nathan stared at her, trying to figure out what she was planning. Whatever it was, it involved what would likely be a very big explosion. The Illusive Man was certainly right about that – Shepard did seem to like to blow things up.


End file.
